The Brunch Club

TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis cooked for a large party near Perth for the final pheasant shoot of the season. The weather omens were poor but dressed in multiple layers and armed with some exciting ideas, the Shaftesbury-born chef was ready to face the elements … TRAVEL  plan A was vetoed as my car (stationed in…

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bso

  UK Premier for Penderecki at The Lighthouse Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits: Conductor Akiko Suwanai: Violin BEETHOVEN: Leonore Overture No.3 PENDERECKI: Symphony No.4 “Adagio” BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto THE BSO has a proud historical record of UK premiers of works by composers of the stature of Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss. This tradition was maintained at…

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Hairspray, BODS at Bath Theatre Royal

THIS is the third show I have seen by BODS in the past 18 months, and after the last one I said I would travel a long way to see anything by this talented amateur group. It was therefore with great confidence that I sat expectantly in the Theatre Royal auditorium tonight, after such recent…

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Three on high

WHAT a blast it’s been – Three Women and the Truth on a whistle stop tour of the California coast from Berkeley to Santa Monica. It’s something we “critics” (aka fans) seldom get to do, and it’s many years on from my days with David Bowie and Mick Ronson on the Ziggy tour. Some things…

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Handel in Italy at Bath Abbey

HANDEL in Italy was the final concert in this year’s Bath Bachfest, the successor to the city’s famous Bach Festival, and organised under the aegis of its long established Mozartfest. There were five concerts in this year’s series, featuring music not just by J.S. Bach but from the wider baroque period – Corelli, Vivaldi, Telemann,…

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Oliver at Ansford Academy, Castle Cary

CARY Amateur Theatrical Society’s latest production is Lionel Bart’s ever-popular musical Oliver! Based, of course, on the novel by Charles Dickens, the show was the first modern British musical to have transferred successfully to Broadway. Although well over 50 years old now, there can be little doubt that, as a stage show, it has stood…

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Three Women and the Truth, on tour

FOUR nights of music from Three Women and the Truth is half way through, Mary Gauthier, Eliza Gilkyson and Gretchen Peters, whose combined acronymic name came as a shock when they realised it, but has now been “owned’ by the trio, are playing to packed and very varied houses in California this week. They started…

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Wicked at Bristol Hippodrome

SOMETHING wicked this way comes, and stays at Bristol Hippodrome for the next four weeks. This musical about two friends in the land of Oz, Glinda and Elphaba, and how one may be good and one may be wicked, has charmed audiences on Broadway and in London’s West End for the past twelve and nine…

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Reboot and revive for 2015

CHEF Philippa Davis found herself whirling from 2014 into 2015 cooking in Scotland for a Hogmanay celebration for about 25 guests. She and a sidekick conjured up feast after feast – curry nights, Middle Eastern spreads, hearty lunches, big breakfasts, game pies and decadent afternoon teas. But the end of the game season is close at…

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Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Theatre Royal Bath

GREAT Ormond Street Hospital was famously left the rights to Peter Pan by J M Barrie, and even if the actual copyright may have lapsed, most versions of this story still honour this, and there is a whole page dedicated to GOSH in the second (and fairly normal) half of the programme for Mischief Theatre’s…

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