MUCH-loved television shows like Blackadder and Dad’s Army have become a staple of the local amateur stage in recent years and now we can add The Vicar of Dibley to the list, thanks to an effervescent production by Street Theatre. It’s easy to see why these classic television comedies are so popular, both for performers…
THE Trethowan brothers, who make award-winning farmhouse Cheddar and Caerphilly at Hewish in north Somerset, have won the Best British Cheese award at this year’s World Cheese Awards, held at Oviedo in Spain, during the Asturias Paraíso Natural International Cheese Festival. Overall, the Trethowans’ Gorwydd Caerphilly took seventh place. The World Champion was a soft…
FOR most of the time in which it was responsible for issuing a certificate for a film to be shown to the public, The British Board of Film Censors would, after seeing the film, place it in one of three categories, U, which could be seen by anyone regardless of age unaccompanied, A, which anyone…
THERE has never been a time when the National Health has had a higher profile than during the pandemic. Throughout 2020 it was impossible to miss posters, petitions, news stories, government statements and support demonstrations for the service set up in 1948 by a hopeful and pioneering Labour administration. Before long opposition had evaporated and…
IF you mix the hilarious Mischief Theatre and Las Vegas superstar magicians Penn and Teller, you ought to have a recipe for amazing magical mayhem. Certainly many in the packed Theatre Royal audience loved Magic Goes Wrong and laughed a lot. Perhaps it helps to be a fan of magic – there are several big…
WORK on renovating the orchards at Springhead, the environmental and arts trust at the ancient mill-house at Fontmell Magna, is beginning on 10th November. There will be volunteer working parties on Wednesday mornings, from 10am to 1pm. It is an opportunity to learn new skills and meet new people. All ages and abilities will be…
WHEN Bing Crosby sang White Christmas for the first time on Radio during his 1941 NBC Radio show, he may have thought it was a good number, but I doubt that he would have imagined that his recording of the song would become an all-time best-selling single of 50,000,000 copies, and if you take other…
ON the 24th of September 1930 London’s glitterati gathered for the opening of a new Theatre, the Phoenix. It was a night when champagne corks popped and everything sparkled, including the first production Noel Coward’s Private Lives. Despite critic Ivor Brown writing ‘ Within a few years, the student of drama will be sitting in…
WHEN the curtain rose showing a white gauze curtain which in turn rose to reveal a completely bare white set dominated by a two-storey, futuristic house mounted on a revolve, my companion – and many others in the audience – exclaimed “Wow!” When the chorus entered, again clad in white, in contrast to the two…
SOMERSET cider-maker Thatchers, which has more than 500 acres of orchards and the largest and most diverse collection of apples used in cider making, is working with the University of Bristol on a project using DNA fingerprinting techniques to identify apple tree varieties. With many old and heritage varieties of apple trees beginning to disappear,…