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…
Wagner: Die Meistersinger Overture Wagner: Das Rheingold: Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla Wagner: Tannhäuser: Grand March Wagner: Tristan and Isolde: Liebestod Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor THE Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s 2013/14 season at Poole Lighthouse got under way in a thrilling concert featuring Valentina Lisitsa, the Ukraine-born pianist often described…
AS someone who still owns the original, white-sleeved, album, starring Julie Covington as Eva and a young Colm Wilkinson as Che; who remembers David Essex and Elaine Paige being cast in the stage show reach newspaper front pages in the 1970s; and who loved the chain of pop videos that was Alan Parker’s film of…
DAPHNE Du Maurier’s chilling mystery Jamaica Inn was famously adapted for the stage by David Horlock in 1990, the artistic director of Salisbury Playhouse who was killed in a traffic accident only days after the play had opened. Now the version has been revived by the Studio Theatre in Ashley Road, the amateur company of…
I FIRST discovered Thalis 25 years ago at the Mandeer, a delightful vegetarian Indian restaurant hidden downstairs in a tiny alley behind the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Their menu included up to seven different Thalis, each made up of a tray of six or seven katoris, small stainless steel bowls, with…
BLACKMAIL is often touted as the first British “talkie”, as Director Alfred Hitchcock got permission during filming to make parts of it with sound, and ended up recording sound for most of the film. It was actually the third or fourth film released with sound; two versions came out in June 1929, to allow for…
THE Meaden family from Minchington, on Cranborne Chase, has completed a full restoration of a traditional fingerpost sign in the small hamlet near Sixpenny Handley. Bill Meaden, owner of Cranborne Chase Cider, and his father Simon paid for the refurbishment which was carried out with the skills of Adam Batty and Graham Cradock. The restoration…