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…
KABUL-born Khaled Hosseini, on whose debut book this play is based, left Afghanistan with his family and arrived in the USA, via Iran and France, unable to speak a word of English. Educated in California, he went on to practise medicine for ten years before producing his first novel, The Kite Runner. A naturalised American…
IT has been impossible to ignore the story of the Post Office and the sub-postmasters, with the powerful ITV drama series and constant media reports of the hearings and the latest uncovering of lives ruined in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in English legal history. But to hear the story first hand is…
A SHAFTESBURY bookshop, which specialises in nature writing, has been named as the best independent book retailer in the South West. FOLDE Dorset has won the British Book Awards Independent Bookshop of the Year competition for the South West, organised by The Bookseller magazine and judged by a prestigious panel of industry specialists, authors, journalists…
THE Palace Court Theatre in Bournemouth was opened in 1931, and for decades was the centre of theatrical activity in the town before closing in 1970, since when it has been used as a cinema, a church and a temporary home for various one-off activities. In 2020 it was bought by Arts University Bournemouth, and…
WHEN Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar hit the stage in the early 1970s, it raised the hackles of many ordinary Churchgoers and those in high positions within the Christian Faith. Tim Rice’s oft quoted remark that they did not see Jesus Christ as God, but simply the right man…
AS part of the Museum of Somerset’s Spotlight Loan programme, from 23rd March to 2nd June 2024, the Tate Gallery is lending The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum (1822) by John Martin. It is a vast and vividly colourful work which caused a public sensation when it was first shown. It also has an important…