DAVID Mamet’s Pulitzer-prize winning 1984 play Glengarry Glen Ross is a scarifying expose of the vicious sales-practices of its time, when targets were all and (in this case) real estate agents achieved them by any means or lost their jobs. Perhaps it was a strange play for the first in-house production by Lyme Regis’s famously…
JOHN Mortimer, who would have celebrated his centenary this year, is perhaps best remembered for creating the immortal Rumpole of the Bailey. His largely autobiographical play A Voyage Round My Father first came to public attention 60 years ago, as three short radio plays. Later adapted for film and for television and stage plays, this…
SALISBURY’S multi-award winning Studio Theatre, now based in Ashley Road, has recently celebrated its 70th anniversary, but in all that time and all those plays, it has never produced a work that centres on LGBTQ characters and issues (to be fair, no-one had ever heard of the ever-expanding LGBTQ categorisations for the great majority of…
THE pandemic had a massive (and mainly adverse) impact on the hospitality and catering industry, but post-Covid many have predicted a “new dawn for fine dining” and the recent publication of the 31st edition of the Trencherman’s Guide, the South West’s dining guide, proves it, says Michael Caines, who chairs the Trencherman’s committee. “In the…
IF you are old enough to remember a time when many houses did not have indoor toilets and when soft loo roll did not exist (torn up newspaper was often used), you can wryly sympathise at the slightly disgusted puzzlement of the young cast members of Stronghold of Happiness, a play-within-a-play, adapted by Dorset writer…
THE award-winning FOLDE Dorset bookshop and gallery at the top of Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, has an impressive line-up of speakers for the autumn series of talks at the Grosvenor Arms. Next up is Tristan Gooley’s talk on 15th November, about his book How To Read a Tree is sold out, and there is a waiting…
THE biggest celebration of English seafood takes place on the English Riviera in South Devon, from 29th September to 15th October, with top chefs, fishermen, restaurants and food writers demonstrating the quality of world-renowned locally caught and landed seafood. More than 40 eateries have joined forces to put on an incredible array of experiences and…
OVER the years since the 1984 release of the concept album from which this show evolved, it has developed quite a cult following. But it has always had a mixed reception from critics and audiences, here and in other parts of the world. The original production ran for three years in London’s Prince Edward Theatre,…
WHEN you walk on stage and immediately feel that the entire audience is on your side, sympathetic to what you have to offer and on the same comedy wavelength, it must be very tempting to relax, become self-indulgent and not work too hard. That was the sort of reception Matt Tedford received when he set…
VERY often you can get the flavour of a show from the audience. Arriving for a matinee performance of this musical whodunnit from the Olivier Award-winning team responsible for Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, and thinking of the response to their success at the Edinburgh fringe festival, I was surprised that the majority of the audience…