RATHER like the stage musical versions of Shrek and The Full Monty, Sister Act is a stage version of a film full of famous, recognisable, memorable songs, but a stage version in which all the music is completely original, and consequently completely new to an audience. Fortunately Sister Act has a book and script by…
THOMAS Kilroy’s play is set in 1943 in an Ireland maintaining its neutrality, fearing invasion from every side, in the grip of petrol rationing and attempting to continue an existence of blarney and petty crime through happy ignorance. And Jenny Stephens’ production for Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, on a studio stage backed with trees…
THERE’S no longer any such thing as a job for life and Jeanette Reid, co -owner of the Queen’s Arms in Corton Denham on the Dorset/Somerset border near Sherborne, is determined to enjoy the potential for variety. She started off with 13 years in the police force, changing tack to take on a high-powered human…
SALISBURY Playhouse’s short plays are among the most interesting of the many events and celebrations across the country marking the anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede 800 years ago. First let me say that the matinee audience, mostly made up of older theatre goers (well, I’m one of them, too!), was less…
HERE in the UK we are using the week to pay homage to that wonderful sweet sticky substance that is made by bees from the nectar of flowers. Yes, National Honey Week is here and it’s time you too got stuck in. Besides keeping the peas on your knife (only joking, Mr Debrett, I know…
MY mother began taking me to the theatre as a very young child, but my first “grown up” memory of the moment I realised that live performance would be a lasting passion was seeing Joan Plowright play St Joan at Chichester Festival Theatre. I was staying with my godmother in Brighton, and for the next…
PATRICK Hamilton’s 1938 thriller, set in the late 19th Century in a London townhouse over the course of a foggy evening, is a favourite with companies professional and amateur, with productions off Broadway and in London’s West End within the last ten years. This is surely now one of the classics of British Theatre, with…
RUDDIGORE (or The Witch’s Curse) may not be one of the most popular of the Savoy Operas but, in the capable hands of director Claire Camble-Hutchins and her talented cast from Bournemouth’s Gilbert and Sullivan Operatic Society, it makes for a rousing night’s entertainment. Musical director Keziah Jacombs and a small orchestra handle Sullivan’s extremely…
THE building that houses The Ticked Pig in Wimborne has been serving food for 65 years, and before that it was a shoemakers. When Niki Barfoot was a child she used to go there with her grandmother and eat cream teas and Black Forest Gateau Now she and husband Jez run their Cafe Deli Kitchen…
by Simone Sekers ALL our friends have just had, or are about to have, holidays which take them, laboriously, to foreign parts. Jordan for one lot, a tour down the Duoro for another. To their surprise, we have just returned from a five-day trip to Bedfordshire (“Bedfordshire?”’ was asked in the tones of Algy’s aunt…