TELEVISION cookery shows often give an unappetising impression of high tension and drama in the kitchen, with foul-mouthed testosterone-charged superstars splattering four-letter words like burning oil across the worktops. Masterchef paints a less aggressive picture but it is still pretty fraught and even the altogether gentler Great British Bake-Off ends in tears as well as smiles….
ATHELHAMPTON House, just outside Puddletown, must surely be one of Dorset’s most beautiful manor houses. Comparatively unsung, it is a place of under-stated but pure beauty and stands in the most breathtaking gardens. Built by Sir William Martyn, the earliest parts of the house are Tudor, and it was restored and transformed in the late…
NEW Zealand famously has more sheep than people – and it also has a lot more cattle than human beings. So it is not surprising that the resulting surplus of dairy products has made this small country a major exporter of butter and cheese. And it’s not just a big export industry – many rural…
FANCY a cocktail? Forget James Bond’s martini (shaken not stirred, of course), the legendary Manhattan or some trendy new concoction from the latest hot mixologist – Blandford’s Hall & Woodhouse brewery wants you to try beer cocktails. The brewery’s Dorset Beer Festival not only offered a chance for serious beer lovers to try more than…
TRAVELLING chef Philippa Davis was home in Shaftesbury for a week recently and had a chance to discover the sweet allure of bee-keeping and honey harvesting. But before she could start dreaming of the delicious dishes she would make with the golden honey, Philippa, a private chef whose work takes her to exotic and beautiful…
Conductor Kirill Karabits, Olga Myktenko (soprano), Alexander Vassilev (bass) Mozart: Serenade No. 10 for 13 Winds, K.361; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 14 THE BSO’s second Lighthouse concert of the season, subtitled Beauty and Death, saw the eagerly-anticipated return of Kirill Karabits to the podium in a programme of striking contrasts. The 36-year-old Ukrainian is now in…
IN Act 5 Scene V of the Scottish Play, a cry is heard and Seyton tells Macbeth “The Queen, my lord, is dead” … but her suicide is offstage. What if this had been false information and the queen had lived on after the death of her husband? It’s this question that David Greig explores…
FARMERS and food producers take their goods to markets across the region, giving them a chance to meet and talk to their customers and find out what they like and what they don’t. Customers have the chance to buy fresh, local and seasonal food from the people who grow and make it, at the same time…
IT’S arguable whether George Orwell’s most revered book can really work on the stage, but there’s no doubt this adaptation at Salisbury Playhouse succeeded in capturing much of the raw power of the story. Orwell’s chilling version of a dystopian future was written in 1948 and now projects haunting echoes of Soviet era secret police;…
FROM the first moment, as the terrific band strikes up Frank Loesser’s overture and the curtains open to a stunning tableau, the scene is set for an evening of stylish delight at the Octagon in Yeovil as YAOS embarks on only its second Guys and Dolls. Directed and choreographed by Alan Spencer with Matthew Holmes…