ALL our lives we have tried to combine our love of old buildings with our love of good food. It’s not always easy, but there have been gastro-pubs in listed buildings, fine picnics in picturesque ruins, even a good tea in a defunct railway station. So when we gave Orkney a thought as a holiday…
PLAYS have been notoriously “going wrong” since they began, probably long before Shakespeare included the Mechanicals as Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and through the later part of the 20th century we have been treated to Michael Green’s various Coarse Acting versions of plays, the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild’s badly produced…
JOAN Littlewood’s iconic musical satire Oh What a Lovely War, was first performed at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1963. A pierrot troupe, organised by a red-coated ringmaster, starts the proceedings with War Games, and as they unfold the audience is taken into the maelstrom of the Great War. Littlewood’s message is clear –…
THERE’s something afoot in the world of cheddar. Not the discovery that the Witch of Wookey Hole is real; but something with far greater implications. This year sees the British Cheese Awards taking place within the Bath and West show. Both events have been behemoths of the British Cheese scene – Bath and West specialising…
MURDER at Checkmate Manor was the ambitious choice of play staged by The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society or F.A.H.E.T.G.D.S for short. Most drama groups will have experienced a fear of things going wrong on opening night, but fortunately, for actors and audiences alike, the very worst rarely happens. Alas, not so…
LESLEY Waters Cookery School has created a selection of delicious recipes using the calorie controlled Fussels’ Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Rapeseed Oil, from sophisticated salmon to roasted salt and pepper pears. Somerset farmer Andy Fussell developed a new bottle for his award-winning golden rapeseed oil with the Lesley Waters Cookery School, with a measured pump…
HISTORY greets you at every turn in York – not just ordinary, common or garden history, but BIG history, tumbling down through the centuries in a cascade of drama with an all-star cast of invaders, monarchs and mayhem. Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans – each ruled York for periods after its foundation by the Romans as…
TAKE two of Dorset’s best-known and most respected food businesses, stir well and freeze – and you have a recipe for successful innovation! At this year’s Casual Dining Show at the Business Design Centre in Islington, Purbeck Ice Cream showcased the delicious, natural ice creams and sorbets made on the farm and scooped the top…
SEE it or live to regret it! So says the poster bearing the now familiar image of a male swan posted on the “What’s On” board outside the Bristol Hippodrome. Although probably not meant to be taken literally, this was still some claim. As it was we need not have worried. From the outset, when…
CANCER is an immensely difficult subject for a play. It is inherently about the things that really matter – life and death – but for many (perhaps most) people, going to the theatre is about entertainment and having a good night out. A play about cancer in which there are only three characters, who speak…