EAST Devon’s Shute Festival continues its series of inspiring talks on 12th March at the Peek Chapel in Pound Street, Lyme Regis, with Julia Hailes, ambassador for the Rainforest Trust. She has recently returned from the Guyanas – British Guiana (as it was), Suriname and French Guiana – where the forests still stand, 83.5%, 93%…
ALFRED Hitchcock’s film version of John Buchan’s 1915 novel is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, and every subsequent iteration is judged by this 90-year-old behemoth. So perhaps it is no surprise that a member of the audience, leaving Salisbury Playhouse’s terrific new production of the Patrick Barlow four-handed version…
SHAKESPEARE is back at Bedminster’s Tobacco Factory, in a stunning new production by Heidi Vaughan, the venue’s artistic director and CEO. It seems a long time since the company Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory was last performing on the cigar packing room floor of the former Wills Factory. Andrew Hilton’s company ran for 20 years…
THERE was a running joke in my family, and the younger members regularly pulled my maternal grandfather’s leg, that as a lifelong trade unionist he was still fighting the General Strike 50 years after the event. Looking at Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff, 40 years after it first appeared on BBC 2, adapted for…
THE story of Hairspray is set in 1962 Baltimore, with its period costumes and hairstyles, when concrete-solid -with-hairspray, tall, back-combed-within-an-inch-of-their-lives beehive hairstyles were all the rage. The story of personal prejudices that were so prevalent at the time against anyone who does not conform to the accepted norm, “chocolate box” beauty for the girls, sharp…
THE big spring exhibition at the Somerset Rural Life Museum at Glastonbury, on until 8th June, is Strength and Resilience: Somerset Women in the Second World War, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, by focusing on the lives of four women who played their part during the conflict and…
ANYONE who has ever had a little ‘punt’ on horse racing will be familiar with, and vouch for, the truth of the old saying ‘horses for courses”. There have been thousands of examples over the years of horses whose performances are a stone or more better on certain courses, and top class trainers who know…
“A stage where everyone’s story can be told” BATH’s Theatre Royal has received planning permission for Venue 4, a new community studio theatre for the public on St John’s Place. Subject to a fundraising campaign, Venue 4 will be a new home for the theatre’s Engage adult participation programme and will offer a range of…
THE new show at the Barn Theatre is all about the difficulty of finding a new James Bond at the same time as the legacy of the founders comes under threat from franchising corporate takeover. By the time I got to Cirencester to catch up with the production, news had just been announced in the…
FOR the second year running, Folde nature bookshop at Shaftesbury has been named as a regional and country finalists in the British Book Awards. Last year the shop, at the top of Gold Hill, got through to the finals of the awards, which are known as the NIBBIEs. The awards are organised by The Bookseller…