Fishing for condiments

TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis continues her account of her weeks by a salmon river in the Highlands of Scotland. This week she discovers that fishing is fun and shares a recipe for horseradish sauce, the perfect complement to fresh wild Scottish salmon, as it is to perfect roast beef … There were members of my…

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Mrs Warren’s Profession at Salisbury Playhouse

THE Cheltenham Everyman production of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession is at Salisbury Playhouse until Saturday 4th July, and is almost sold out. But judging by the opening night audience, several anticipated an evening of period laughs a la Downton Abbey, and that it certainly is not. Written in 1893 but not performed until…

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Deckchairs, Halse Players at the Old Cider House

JEAN McConnell’s series of “Deckchairs”  playlets, with their small, all-female casts and minimal set, are a godsend for amateur societies. It is, perhaps, a slight surprise to find such safe fare on the menu at Halse, but every society needs a balanced programme and God of Carnage all the time would get a little wearing….

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From plot to plate at The Tickled Pig

THERE is a new look to The Tickled Pig in Wimborne. After three years establishing the Michelin-recommended restaurant in East Street as a destination for outstanding locally-sourced and seasonal cuisine, The Tickled Pig has been reinvented as a new breed of delicatessen-come-café and kitchen, selling and serving its own home-grown and home-reared produce. In its…

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Quite the catch …

TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis has been off to Scotland again, this time to the Highlands to cook for a salmon fishing week on the River Findhorn – lots of big breakfasts, afternoon teas, help yourself suppers and best of all barbecues by the river … “OH, it’s easy to find, you can’t miss it !”…

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Love for Love, BOVTS at Bristol Old Vic

William Congreve wrote only five plays, the best known of which was the last, The Way of the World. Love for Love, written in  1695 and famous for the line “O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell”, is a complicated story of sexual encounters and true love which students from Bristol Old Vic…

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The Importance of Being Earnest, Theatre Royal Bath

OSCAR Wilde’s classic The Impor­t­ance of Being Earnest has been described as the “perfect comedy” and is certainly one of the most enduringing popular shows on the English-speaking stage. Edith Evans is thought to have nailed Lady Bracknell for all time with her iconic interrogation “a handbag?” and directors and actors have sought in vain…

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Ridgeway Singers and Band, St George’s Church, Reforne

EVEN on a sunny June evening, the waves crash against Portland Bill, the wind whistles along Chesil Beach and the white horses dance and race in the blue-green sea.  The seas on the night that the Earl of Abergavenny, an East Indiaman out of Portsmouth, foundered and sank off Portland in 1805 were huge and…

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The Day They Kidnapped the Pope, Street Theatre on tour

IT’S a rare treat to see a “new” play on an amateur tour, and althought Joao Bethencourt surreal comedy is 30 years old, it is new to audiences in the south west. As it says in the title, it’s about the kidnapping of the Holy Father – on this occasion by an eccentric Brooklyn taxi…

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