VISITORS to the National Trust’s world-famous Stourhead landscape gardens, near Mere in Wiltshire, can now discover the history of the property as they walk around the gardens. A new audio introduction brings the history of this masterpiece of 18th century landscape creation to life through narration and storytelling, with professional actors and an original score….
A NEW lighting system at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre is expected to pay for itself in little more than a year, with savings forecast of almost £10,000 and nearly eight tonnes of CO2e*. The Lighthouse management has recently completed essential improvement works to enhance energy efficiency, reduce environmental impact and ensure the long-term sustainability of…
THE National Trust is restoring areas of wood pasture on Purbeck, as part of a project to amplify nature’s chorus. Wood pasture is a prime habitat for our much-loved songbirds, like this beautiful thrush. One of the UK’s most biodiverse habitats, wood pasture is a mosaic of grassland, scrub, hedges and trees. It provides important…
THERE is quite a trend currently for films to be adapted for the stage but there have been few book-to-film-to-stage versions that are better or more entertaining than Patrick Barlow’s inventive and hilarious staging of the John Buchan classic thriller, The 39 Steps. This brilliant play opens the in-house production season at Salisbury Playhouse, running…
SHAKESPEARE’s dark drama The Merchant of Venice may have one of the most famous speeches in the whole canon, but it is a difficult play for modern audiences. We struggle with the arrogant anti-semitism of Antonio and most of us surely squirm at the twin horrors of Shylock’s merciless revenge and the humiliation he suffers…
DEVON-born actress Caroline Corrie has made an impressive debut as a film director with Shalborne and there are two screenings at Honiton’s Beehive on Saturday 8th February, at 3.30pm and 7.30pm. The versatile actress, who trained at RADA, has not only written and directed this debut feature film, she also designed the costumes and sets…
CONCERTS in the West, the musical charity which promotes rising stars of the chamber music world, celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2025. The first concert series of the year, on 14th and 15th February, brings the period instrument quartet Ensemble Hesperi to Bridport Arts Centre, Ilminster Arts Centre and the Dancehouse at Crewkerne. Ensemble Hesperi,…
BATH’s award-winning and talented Operatic and Dramatic Society has chosen the timeless Rodgers and Hammerstein musicalOklahoma! For the spring production at Bath Theatre Royal from Tuesday 4th to Saturday 8th February. Full of wonderful and memorable songs, the rousing score features the famous title number Oklahoma!, alongside Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’, The Surrey With…
ONE of the finest British actresses of her generation, Maxine Peake comes to Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio in a production of the powerful drama Doubt. Ben Daniels, an Olivier Award-winning actor and well-known from many television roles, co-stars in the production, which runs from 7th February to 8th March. Doubt, A Parable, by John…
THE three Ghost stories that Dr Goodman, Professor of Parapsychology, uses to illustrate his lecture to the audience on the power of the paranormal have been greeted by some people as being “harrowing, 80 minutes of nightmare thrills”, and by others as being “as substantial and troubling as the fake ectoplasm manifested by a dodgy…