WHEN this Original Theatre Company touring production of Sebastian Faulk’s famous First World War novel opened last year, a friend who is a big fan of the book said she thought it was more powerful and intense than the television adaptation. She was right. It is grittier, darker, noisier, more urgent, more passionate and more…
ROSIE King has not only directed this year’s Community Pantomime at Motcombe, but has also written it, crafting a script that includes all of the required characters, plus a few others, along with jokes old and new and many favourite routines, from the fragile parcel ruined by the actions of the comedy team, via the…
A WILD mushroom pie has taken a Bournemouth man into the finals of the Badger Ales national pie competition, which will be judged at the Hall & Woodhouse pub-restaurant in Bath on Thursday 6th March. Russell Clarke beat nearly 700 entries to reach the finals. He won the first round of the vegetarian category, impressing…
Last year, Janet Wood from Mere, joined explorer Col John Blashford-Snell and members of the Scientific Exploration Society, based at Motcombe, on an expedition to Mongolia. In her latest article, Janet describes a visit to a Buddhist monastery and temples in the capital city Ulan Bator. CYNTHIA, my room mate, woke me up at 9am…
A BEAUTIFUL country house hotel, in one of the most perfect Wiltshire villages, Howards House Hotel has been named Britain’s Most Romantic Hotel in the Good Hotel Guide since 2010. The independent, family-run hotel, beside the Teff chalk stream which runs through Teffont Evias, in the south west corner of the county, is also renowned…
WITH some brilliant cameos, jolly songs, corny jokes, colourful costumes and a very stylish set, COMPACT’s production of Sinbad the Sailor at Child Okeford sparkled from start to finish. Even the safety regulations (together with the inevitable reminder to turn off our mobile phones) were part of the act and helped get the audience in…
FINALLY, I am convinced by Terry Pratchett on stage. I knew that as a writer he was witty and clever with an endlessly inventive storyteller’s imagination. I knew that he had millions of fans. I live in a town that is “twinned” with his fictional city of Ankh Morpork and has a Discworld Emporium with…
THERE is one essential element for a village pantomime, and that is that everyone – the cast, the crew and the audience – needs to be involved. And it’s impossible to think of a more successful example of the genre than this year’s Cinderella from Buckhorn Amateur Theatrical Society at Buckhorn Weston Village Hall. Alison…
THERE is something of a fashion to adapt vast novels for the stage in two or more parts, most of them involving large casts and vast sets. But the current show at Bristol Old Vic, a new working of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre devised by the cast under the direction of Sally Cookson, is on…
WHEN customers ask for this cheese, they pronounce it one of two ways: “Oh-gleshield” or “Ogg-leshield”. I spoke with Jamie Montgomery, who makes this fine cheese in North Cadbury, Somerset and he says it’s Oh-gleshield. That’s settled, then. Jamie’s celebrated unpasteurised cheddar, Montgomery, uses milk from his Friesian herds, while Ogleshield is made from the…