Regenerative milk vending trial at Nunney

THE picturesque village of Nunney, near Frome, will be the setting for a new regenerative milk vending trial. Golden Hooves milk and milkshakes being sold in-store for the first time. The machines will be stationed at the SPAR on the Market Place from Wednesday 18th October, where Bill the Butcher sells regeneratively farmed meat. This…

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Machinal, Ustinov Studio, Bath Theatre Royal

SOPHIE Treadwell is an unusual animal among American playwrights – a feminist Expressionist who is best known for her play Machinal, which is not some French word as you and I might have thought, but a reference to the machines that control our lives. The play is one of her prolific output of novels and…

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The Girl on the Train, Salisbury Playhouse

THE Girl on the Train was one of the best-selling novels of all time, topping the fiction lists in both the UK and the US for months. Paula Hawkins’ thriller was successfully adapted into a hugely successful film, starring Emily Blunt, and now comes to Salisbury Playhouse in a brilliantly visualised, minimalist staging that brings…

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Goats in an ancient landscape

A FAMILY farm on the beautiful Marlborough Downs in north Wiltshire, which is part of a pioneering environmental scheme, is promoting its flock of Boer goats as a healthy meat alternative and the source of a wide range of gifts. Since 2012, farmer Laura Corbett has been one of more than 40 members of the…

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Cosi Fan Tutte, Celebrate Voice, Salisbury Guildhall

MOZART’s comic opera, Cosi Fan Tutte, has some of the most glorious music he ever wrote. So many wonderful arias, so much fun – with four of the silliest protagonists you can imagine! Its basic premise that “all women are the same” – that is, incapable of fidelity – jars with a 21st century (female)…

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La Traviata, Welsh National Opera at Bristol Hippodrome and touring

THERE are some roles in opera, drama and on film, which so dominate that you feel sorry for those who have the other leading parts in the story. One such is that of the courtesan Violetta Valery in Alexander Dumas fils’ novel La Dame aux Camelias. Almost every great actress and singer of their generation…

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The Score, Theatre Royal Bath

JUST what is actor-writer Oliver Cotton’s new play The Score about? At its centre is Johann Sebastian Bach, mesmerisingly played by big and small screen actor Brian Cox (Logan Roy in Succession), whose presence is packing Bath Theatre Royal until 28th October. Cox has not been seen on stage for 17 years, and The Score…

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Choir Boy, Bristol Old Vic

ONE of the soundest pieces of advice a potential author can receive is “write about something you know”. And theatrically, Bristol Old Vic’s artistic director Nancy Medina has taken that advice in choosing Choir Boy, first seen in 2012 at London’s Royal Court Theatre, for her first outing as a director since taking charge of…

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