WIMBORNE Community Theatre, currently celebrating its 35th anniversary, was joined by local singers, children from Wimborne First and St Michael’s Schools, members of Millstream Theatre and young musicians from QE School, for a new production, Belonging – Our search for Home, outdoors at Kingston Lacy from 22nd to 27th September. Belonging is a tale of…
ARTIST Sarah Hornby has a real feeling for the sea – with a background in sailing and ocean rowing, she is now a successful contemporary coastal artist, with exhibitions currently in Wareham and at Sculpture by the Lakes, and an upcoming group show at Canford Cliffs. Born and raised in Poole, where she still lives, Sarah…
THE adventurous Shoemakers Museum at Street is one of the main venues for this year’s Somerset Art Weeks, from hosting the launch of the family programme with children’s author Jasbinder Bilan to a fascinating and immersive installation by artists and performers Melanie Thompson and Helen Ottoway, the Frome-based composer. Step by Step is open during…
SLADERS Yard, the contemporary art gallery and cafe in West Bay, continues its 20th anniversary celebrations with a major exhibition of paintings, drawings and etchings by David Inshaw, one of the great contemporary painters of landscape, an artist who has been showing regularly at the gallery throughout those years. The solo show, At the Still…
YO Thom, one of the country’s leading ceramicists, is exhibiting alongside well-known Dorset print-maker Liz Somerville at The Art Stable, the contemporary gallery at Gold Hill Organic Farm, Child Okeford, until 24th October. Originally from Japan – a heritage which is inherent in her beautiful ceramics – Yo Thom has lived in North Dorset for…
MILLION Dollar Quartet, the hit musical which moved from Cirencester’s Barn Theatre to a London season, is going on a national tour in 2027, with 23 major venues all across the country from January to July. After its sell-out success at the Barn in the summer, Million Dollar Quartet is at The Arts at Marble…
AMERICAN novelist Shirley Jackson decided to write a ghost story, apparently after reading about a group of 19th century psychic researchers who studied a supposedly haunted house. Published in 1959, Jackson’s hugely popular gothic horror story has been adapted for the stage by Olivier and BAFTA award-winner Stef Smith, and is currently having its world…
ONE year on from the rescue and relaunch of Taste of the West as a Community Interest Company (CIC), its founding directors have presented their vision for the future of the regional food group, alongside a much-extended range of member benefits for food and drink businesses across the South West. Harnessing the collective experience of…
A much-respected local music critic, with a deep knowledge of opera and classical music, had one great blind spot – he hated Mozart’s music, one his operas, Don Giovanni in particular. Despite the fact that ever since its first, rapturously received 1787 production in Prague, it has been constantly named as one of the worlds…
AMONGST my most treasured long-playing records is a box containing two LPs of the January 1954 BBC Third Programme broadcast of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood originally described as a play for voices. Some 30 actors, led by Richard Burton and Richard Bebb as the narrators, combined to bring the 60+ named characters who inhabited…