A NEW project to record heritage sites that matter to local communities has been launched by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Somerset and the Exmoor National Park is one of 22 pilots for this new Local Heritage List. The list is intended to help to protect buildings, sites and structures that local…
TO say that this show only scratches the surface of the life and work of composer/singer Carole King would be putting it mildly. With more than 100 pop songs that found their way into the charts and 25 solo albums, many written for some of the top musical artists to emerge in the later part…
EDUCATING Rita burst on to the national consciousness nearly 40 years ago in a film which made a star of Julie Walters – but Willy Russell’s play was first staged three years previously, and it is as a play that it really works its magic, as it does once again in this production by Sherborne’s…
IT may not seem a big deal, in the general scheme of devastated lives and shattered towns and cities, but the impact of the appalling Russian invasion of Ukraine stretches into many areas of life. Even food awards. This year’s 34th annual World Cheese Awards were due to take place in the war-torn country, and…
WE all need some good news, even if it is only very small – an egg. Salisbury Cathedral’s peregrines have laid their first egg – and within a few days there may be more. The female returned to the nest just before 7pm on Saturday 19th March and laid the egg just before 8. She…
VENICE is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Perhaps the most beautiful. And it has some famous (and famously expensive) hotels and restaurants. But with the emphasis on seafood, of course, and the traditional dishes such as fegato, it doesn’t have any kind of vegetarian food culture. So when we went to…
THE peregrines are back on their lofty perch at Salisbury Cathedral – and the webcam which allows us to see them has now gone live. They’ve been hanging around the tower for a while and have been seen mating, so the signs are good. Last year the first egg was laid on 15th March so…
THERE are so many good causes associated with the writing, production and presentation of this play that a desire to support them can take over your emotions. leaving you almost incapable of looking at the production as a piece of theatre. As someone who at a young age spent hours rolling my Rs in order…
DIRECTOR Rachel Butcher brings a cinematic vibe to her production of Agatha Christie’s Go Back for Murder, on at the Swan Theatre in Yeovil until 19th March. This is the one where Christie began with Poirot in the novel version, but changed him to young solicitor Justin Fogg for the stage, and the Swan was…
KINKY Boots, the film, came out in 2005, and was followed by Cyndi Lauper’s multi-award winning musical of the same name in 2012. It has arrived at Yeovil’s Octagon Theatre, performed by the versatile, plucky and very talented Yeovil Amateur Operatic Society – now known more modernly as YAOS Productions – and it’s on until…