JAPAN is famous for its cherry blossom season, when people flock to admire the ethereal and transitory beauty of the trees in full bloom. This spring, the National Trust team at Mompesson House in Salisbury’s Cathedral Close is launching a Festival of Blossom, with a trail around the Close until 4th June. You can pick…
AT 9pm on Wednesday July 20th 2011 BBC three put out a documentary directed and produced by Jenny Popplewell entitled Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, which to put it mildly raised more than a few eyebrows. Narrated by Jill Halfpenny it followed the story of County Durham schoolboy Jamie Campbell, who after coming out as…
A PACKED audience at Bath Theatre Royal welcomed the appearances of their old friends from GlobeLink with cheers and applause as each arrived on the stage – which must have delighted the writers, who were in the theatre for the show. Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, who wrote all six series of the television comedy…
PEOPLE who love goat’s milk cheese will need no introduction to Tor, one of the many fine cheeses made by Roger Longman of White Lake Cheese, based at Bagborough close to the Royal Bath & West showground near Shepton Mallet. Already a three-star Great Taste Award-winner, the ash-covered, pyramid-shaped Tor has just won the Best…
ARE you and your children looking for fun and adventure this Easter? Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in Dorchester has a choice of activities and exhibitions for all tastes, including a chance for youngsters to dress up as birds (pictured). As well as the brilliant exhibition of Elisabeth Frink’s work and life, on until 21st…
ADAPTING Paula Hawkins’ best selling novel The Girl on the Train for the stage is a challenge both for the actors and for the technical team, as its tension requires not only moving images of railway movement but clear depictions of messages on mobile phones and lots of often startling sound effects. All very well…
HUMAN rights and peace activist Zohar Lavie brings her first-hand experience of working for justice and peace to the next Help Our Planet (HOP) talk at Sladers Yard contemporary art and craft gallery, West Bay, on Thursday 4th April at 7pm. The devastating suffering and violence we are witnessing in Gaza, the West Bank and…
IN an average week, we do one or two theatre reviews, one of which is usually a professional show. This week we will have done four, all amateur (plus a concert). Two in Yeovil – A Splinter of Ice at the Swan and YAOS’s Oklahoma! at Westlands – and Girl on the Train in Street….
THE “old boys network” is a constant feature of British life, and no matter how many times we are told the class structure of society is a thing of the past, those old boys still reign supreme in (especially) politics, business and the law. It’s all about supporting the people with the same, often educational,…
IN recent years, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 musical Oklahoma has had something of a makeover, with hard-edged productions delighting critics and audiences. Now it’s the turn for Yeovil’s own remarkable musical theatre community, under the direction of Sheila Driver, to present a version that strips away the sentimentality, leaving the lush songs, poignant romance, sexual…