ALAN Bennett’s wonderfully witty and thought-provoking double bill throwing contrasting lights on two of the ‘Cambridge Spies’, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, finds a perfectly satisfactory production with The Halse Players. In the seven years of their existence this compact group have already formed a reputation for setting themselves high standards and for being prepared…
JOHN Mortimer, drawing from his own experience, wrote his first play The Dock Brief in 1958. It’s a gentle comedy that satirises the precarious existence of those called to the Bar. Wilfred Morgenhall studied late into the night, devouring legal precedent and Latin terminology until he passed his finals and was called. But that was…
EVELYN Glennie, the world-famous percussionist, chose the cellist Jacqueline du Pre, for her interview on BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives series last week. It was a fortuitous choice for those of us who were due to see Duet For One at the Warehouse Theatre this week. The programme looked at du Pre both as one…
HARD to believe on an April day when the rain is lashing down, but summer isn’t far off – and what better way to celebrate in style on a hot sunny day than with an iced cocktail! That is the delicious idea of Crispin Shingler, a mixologist and former actor, who has brought the skills…
DORSET has the perfect climate and soil for growing vines – particularly to produce champagne-style sparkling wines. The success of a new local vineyard in the 2014 Judgement of Parsons Green underlines the growing importance of viticulture in the local food and drink industry. Langham Wine Estate, near Dorchester, took the top prize with its…
ERROL John’s groundbreaking 1958 play Moon on a Rainbow Shawl was written when he was 34 years old, an immigrant from Port of Spain (where the play is set). It tells of the struggle of a young man to leave the ties of his Trinidad home and make the break for a new life in…
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9 MOZART’s cycle of piano concertos sees the composer exploring a very wide variety of moods. His final concerto, No. 27, is Mozart at his most intimate, delicate and wistful. Orchestrated without timpani, trumpets or clarinets, the wind section consists of a flute…
WHEN you have a global reputation for music like Glastonbury has, a world-renowned shoe manufacturers like Street, and your long-established joint musical comedy society boasts an internationally in demand award-winning choreographer among its alumni, perhaps it’s no surprise that the current show at Strode Theatre in Street is a spectacular, triumphant hit. The G&SMCS is…
TOM Stoppard’s 1993 play Arcadia is a constant delight and revelation, no matter how many times you see it. It’s probably the playwright’s cleverest play, set at Sidley Park, home of the Coverlys, in 1809 and the present day, and interweaving not just characters over two centuries but brilliantly constructed ideas and explanations from a…
DORCHESTER’s sixth community play, Drummer Hodge, is a triumph! Moving, dramatic, funny, full of rousing music and great performances, it will make you laugh and cry. Dorchester at the end of the 19th century. The world is changing, there is war on the horizon in distant South Africa and the pace of life in Dorset…