IMAGINE entering the doors of Downton Abbey, seeing the familiar faces of the family and the staff in the great hall, and then sitting down to watch them enacting a Victorian mystery by Wilkie Collins. That’s the conceit of television screenwriter Nick Warburton’s version of The Moonstone (his first adaptation) chosen by Taunton Thespians to…
BRISTOL fielded more banjo players than any other venue in the UK on Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn’s tour – 23 of them in all. And a treat they had on Sunday, as the husband-and-wife duo played a blistering set which ranged from Bela (named for Bartok) playing Bach to Abby clogging her way through…
OUR political masters and those who are obsessed with the European question think the in-out vote on EU membership is the most important issue facing us. For others, the threat posed by climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity, however much climate change deniers want to ignore it. It is a threat to the…
Prokofiev: Sinfonietta Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 Haydn: Symphony No. 104 ‘London’ Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits: Conductor Stephen Isserlis: Cello CELLIST Steven Isserlis is a regular soloist with the BSO. He has enormous charisma and presence, and an enthusiastic full house saw him give an intense and dramatic performance…
MICHAEL Frayn’s farce, Noises Off, is the perfect example of just how hard it is to bring off a show which keeps the audience in fits of laughter by a constant barrage of mistaken identity, doors opening and closing, trousers dropping and bizarre plotting. It is the story of Otstar Productions’ production of Robin Housemonger’s…
BARNEY Norris is fast making a name for himself as the playwright to watch, and his latest work, Eventide, stopped at Salisbury Playhouse’s Salberg Studio before its final performances at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory. Barney met Alice Hamilton in a youth theatre group and together they formed Up in Arms Theatre, a south- west based company…
AS I have said before, if you want to see a play, any play at all, done well, go and see it at the Swan in Yeovil. The theatre itself is a gem, with just ten rows of about 20 seats, each with a good view of the stage, the company strives for perfection, and…
SIR Cameron Mackintosh will hopefully be sleeping soundly in his Somerset bed this evening, after a sell out performance of the revival of his stage version of the famous Disney film, at the very beginning of what will probably be a record-breaking tour, if the energy, enthusiasm, talent and pure joy of tonight’s cast, band…
EARLIER this year I had occasion to describe a Wellington production as “one of the finest pieces of amateur theatre I have ever seen”. At the risk of monotony, I can think of no better way to describe Ilminster Entertainment’s Society’s Woman In Mind. Woman In Mind is one of Ayckbourn’s less accessible plays, and…
OUR “personal chef” (we wish!) has been back to the Highlands cooking for various grouse, partridge and pheasant shoots and in this Postcard Recipe she shows how to make the most of pheasant in season … I should quickly clarify the title as I have already had to dig myself out of trouble from the gamekeeper…