PHILIPPA Davis, the travelling chef from Shaftesbury, has been swamped with plums on her recent engagement in the south of France where she faced an almost impossible task of making use of all the plums growing in the garden. For her latest trip she was in Stirlingshire in Scotland where she found a freezer full…
JONATHAN Larson’s rock opera (not musical; quite apart from its source in Puccini, the whole structure of the piece is distinctly operatic with its almost total lack of spoken dialogue and 19th-century-style recitatives) is probably the most successful and influential work of its kind of the last fifty years; it’s been described as speaking to,…
THE Ustinov Studio’s exciting autumn season opens with the UK premiere of Play Strindberg, Alistair Beaton’s new translation of Friedrich Durrenmatt’s satirical take on Dance of Death. The programme starts with an imagined conversation between the Swiss dramatist and his translator, justifying the slight changes but emphasising that this is very much a translation and…
STOURHEAD’s annual Festival of the Voice owes its origins to the Confluence Project, almost 15 years ago now, when two musicians, Helen Porter and Karen Wimhurst, came together to travel the course of the River Stour from its source to the sea, exploring the importance of water in our lives and creating music en route….
YASMINA Reza wrote one of my favourite plays, “Art”, and after its huge success in London’s West End and on Broadway, three other plays by Reza have been translated from the original French by the same British playwright, Christopher Hampton. One of these, Life x 3, is gracing the stage of the Swan Theatre in…
ALL week, walkers, runners and locals driving past Poole Park watched the pick-a-stick construction of bamboo pieces of all sizes, from bendy striplings to massive trunks, as it was erected by the cricket ground. What on earth was going on? Finally on Friday night all was revealed – and it was truly spectacular, in every…
WE were invited to “attend the tale of Sweeney Todd”, in the intimate surroundings of Bath’s Rondo Theatre, by Merriman Productions, a Midsomer Norton based company, who rose to the challenge Stephen Sondheim’s musical presents with considerable assurance. The largely youthful cast was headed by William Stevens who gave a truly spine-tingling performance in the…
SEAN O’Casey’s Irish drama Juno and the Paycock opened in Dublin 90 years ago, and has become the writer’s most frequently performed and most popular work. Its timely revival at Bristol Old Vic, played on the deep stage in front of a rickety structure of discarded furniture, musical instruments, doors and windows, powerfully underlines its…
THE Filter “incarnation” of the Scottish Play started its life at the Tobacco Factory in Bedminster in the spring, and now returns for its first performances before setting off on a national tour. Like all the company’s productions, it explores the interaction of music, text, movement and sound, and what better play than the tense…
ALAN Ayckbourn’s 1975 Bedroom Farce is one of his most popular and frequently performed plays, so it is a real delight to see it fresh as a daisy and full of unexpected delights. In Gareth Machin’s production at Salisbury Playhouse, opening the 2014-15 season until Saturday 4th October, the theatre has been re-conformed to allow…