TAKE a name like Francois Billetdoux and an image of famous actors Felicity Kendall and Simon Callow embracing, champagne flutes in hand, against a backdrop of Paris under blue skies, with the single word Chin-Chin, and you think you’re in for a frothy farce. There might be a clue to this extraordinary play, which first…
TALES of mythical gods and kings were regular subjects for the early composers, who, rather like journalists, never let the “facts” spoil a good story – though what was fact and what was fiction in the Greek Myths is open to endless academic debate. The excellent English Touring Opera company, this year accompanied by the…
IF Finea (The Lady of Little Sense) was a 20th century child she’d be diagnosed with behavioural issues, prescribed Ritalin and sent to a school for special needs. But, happily for the audience at Bath’s Ustinov Theatre, in Lope de Vega’s play, translated by David Johnston and directed by Laurence Boswell, she is leaping and…
FOOD awards proliferate, from broadcast media to local newspapers, but there are a handful that represent the zenith for food businesses, food and drink producers, restaurants, pubs, growers and retailers. They include the BBC Radio 4 Food Programme awards, the Guild of Fine Food’s Great Taste Awards, run from the Guild’s HQ in Gillingham, and…
TYNEHAM, Dorset’s famous ‘ghost village’ close to the coast in Purbeck, has been described as the community that died for D-Day. In November 1943 notice was given to the village’s 225 residents ordering them to leave within 28 days as the area was needed for forces’ training. On 17th December the last villagers left believing…
ONE of the joys of an English autumn is the game and we are lucky in the Wessex area with the number of excellent independent butchers and game specialists from whom we can buy local pheasants, partridge and venison. If you don’t have a good local specialist, ask at Somerset or Dorset Farmers Markets (see…
EASY Bean, based on a farm in South Somerset, has launched a new “bean” inspired, gluten-free range this autumn. Company founder Christina Baskerville has added the new Chickpea Crispbreads to her pioneering range of one-pot meals which she launched six years ago. The Easy Bean mission is to produce tasty, healthy and convenient food that…
IF your idea of the perfect coffee house is a picturesque building, serving great coffee and cakes, where you can meet friends for a gossip or just sit undisturbed reading a book or the paper – or even watching the world go by, drop into Divine Wines at Wincanton. It is very much a European…
OUR passion for the Tudors continues unabated, with films, television dramas, historical novels – plus stage adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the end of this year – and now Bournemouth Gilbert and Sullivan Society joins the merry Tudor dance with The Yeomen of the Guard,…
I HAVE seen Dramatic Productions in an enchanting children’s story, a polished and entertaining Ayckbourn, an unforgettable Of Mice and Men and now a new show that I hope to forget as soon as possible. It is Bournemouth University tutor John Foster’s retelling of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, on at Poole Lighthouse…