THERE are urban dwellers (and maybe country folk) who are really scared of woods. A legendary aunt sat locked in a car in a state of high terror when the rest of the family went for a walk in the New Forest. We have laughed about it many times. But, having just seen Craig White’s…
IF you told Laura and Danny, the characters in David Eldridge’s play Beginning, about agricultural workers from Yorkshire walking over the Pennines to Lancashire every weekend to court their lasses, it would be like discussing ancient history. But, oddly, their dreams and wishes are the same, maybe proving that the more it changes, the more…
LIKE most people, I first came upon Grease when the now legendary film starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John arrived like a bursting meteor of energy in 1978. Big impression as it made, I never expected to find it gathering big audiences in the theatre, well over half of whom were not even born when…
WEST Dorset artisan charcuterie producers Capreolus have once again received a list of two and three stars in this year’s Great Taste Awards, including the prestigious three stars for Wild Venison Chorizo and Dorset Soft Salami. David and Karen Richards, who have been creating delicious artisan charcuterie since 2009, also received three two-star awards for…
THREE outstanding meat products from the South West have received the coveted three stars in the newly announced 2021 Great Taste Awards. The world’s leading food award scheme attracts entries from around the world. This year 14,113 different products, from 108 countries, were judged at the Gillingham HQ of organisers the Guild of Fine Food,…
DIRECTOR Ian White, a life-long lover of the theatre and Shakespeare’s Scottish play in particular, sees the Macbeths as a couple with “a mature and successful marriage” – indeed the only one in the canon. As such, he says, the guilt and the blame for the murderous tyranny that they unleash has to be shared….
WORSHIPPERS at the church of St Mary, on the outskirts of Kilmington just north of Stourhead, walk weekly over the site of a heinous crime committed in Tudor times. Audiences at the three performances of Murder Most Foul have a clearer idea of the story behind the murders of William Hartgill and his son John,…
IT would be hard to imagine a more perfect setting for baroque opera than the Italianate cloister in the beautiful Harold Peto-designed gardens of Iford Manor near Bradford-on-Avon. Over the years, the cloister and the gardens were the setting for operas from every period, jazz, folk and world music, picnic proms and more. It was…
IN the golden era of Hollywood, you could always pick out a production made by one of the five studios – MGM. Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia, and RKO – who dominated the industry, because of the visual production quality of their films. No matter how good or bad the film might be they were always visually…
RONALD Harwood’s 1980 play The Dresser is out on tour again in a new production, opening at Bath Theatre Royal and stopping at 12 venues around the UK until February. Set in January 1942 in a provincial theatre, with German bombs falling all around, it’s a period piece harking back to the days of the actor-manager,…