The Lover/The Collection, Ustinov Studio, Bath

HAROLD Pinter almost single-handedly invented the “theatre of menace”, and his successors took up the idea and ran with it. Watching his early 1960s television play The Lover again, in the brilliant production by Lindsay Posner currently on stage at the intimate Ustinov Studio in Bath, I couldn’t help but feel that he had invented…

Read more...

Ancient stories from Dorset

BRITISH Museum curator Sophia Adams will give a talk about the important Iron Age and Roman finds from a grave on Cranborne Chase, at the Dorset Museum in Dorchester on Thursday 18th April at 7pm. “Traditions and Transitions: The Story of the Chettle Grave Group” will discuss the 2003 discovery of a locally made bronze…

Read more...

Musical walks with Ninebarrow

DORSET’s much-loved folk duo Ninebarrow – James LaBouchardiere and Jon Whitley – are almost as well known for their love of walking as they are for their beautiful harmonies and charming original songs. For some years they have been leading walks and writing books to introduce their fans and fellow-walkers to different areas of their…

Read more...

A year at Daylesford

DORSET artist Gary Cook has spent much of the past year sketching in the landscape around the Daylesford estate on the Cotswolds, and the results can be seen in a new exhibition, ReWolding, at Daylesford from 16th to 29th April, capturing the unique atmosphere and beauty of this area of sweeping hills, wooded valleys and…

Read more...

Legacy helps Trust to plant 5,000 trees

A GENEROUS legacy has helped the National Trust to plant 5,000 trees as part of two new hedgerows on the Golden Cap Estate on Dorset’s Jurassic coast near Morcomeblake. Once established, the new hedges will become crucial wildlife corridors, absorb carbon, create shelter and provide a food source for a wide variety of birds, mammals…

Read more...

The Drowsy Chaperone, Milborne Port Opera

IT’S 34 years since the fledgling Milborne Port Opera took to the village hall stage to perform Trial by Jury, and since then dozens of singing actors, acting singers and dancers have got together around Easter to put on a show. The company’s reputation has grown, the repertoire become more varied, and, from the original…

Read more...

Catching Purbeck’s puffins on camera

HIGH ropes experts have installed cameras on the cliffs near the National Trust’s Dancing Ledge in Purbeck to monitor the last known nesting site for puffins on the mainland of southern England. It is hoped that the cameras will reveal why these iconic birds are on the verge of extinction. In the early 1900s, puffins…

Read more...

The Wizard of Oz, Bristol Hippodrome

AFTER singing Climb Every Mountain at a band call in the Circle Bar of Bristol Hippodrome, a friend of mine fixed a steely eye on the conductor and brass section of the orchestra and said, “Listen gentleman, the audience will have paid their money to hear me sing this number, not hear you play it”….

Read more...

The Full Monty, Theatre Royal Bath

IN many ways the story of Montague Burton, gentlemen’s outfitters, runs parallel with the rise and fall of the steel industry in the UK. Escaping from Russian pogroms, Lithuanian born Meshe David Osinsky arrived in this country in 1900, aged 15 and unable to speak English. Within a year he was earning a living as…

Read more...