Record-breaking World Cheese Awards

THE 2021 World Cheese Awards, taking place in Oviedo, Spain, on Wednesday 3rd November, have received more than 4,000 entries from a record-breaking 45 countries. They include not only the great cheese-making nations, France, Spain, Italy, England and Switzerland, but also  India, Guatemala, Japan, Colombia, Israel and Ukraine. The 33rd annual awards are taking place…

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Wuthering Heights, Bristol Old Vic and touring

THERE’S nothing predictable about Emma Rice’s productions other than their unpredictability, but for those of us in the South West who saw her development first hand with Kneehigh, before she went national and divided audiences and administrators at Shakespeare’s Globe, her take on Wuthering Heights was bound to be an exciting prospect. The co-production between…

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The Cat and the Canary, Yeovil Octagon and touring

THE Classic Thrills Company tour of The Cat and the Canary is a large scale production, filling the stage with big furniture and sets – a taste of things to come at Yeovil Octagon, which closes next year for a major refurbishment. John Willard’s original, which has spawned numerous film and theatre adaptation, gets a…

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Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Bristol Hippodrome and touring

WHEN a documentary entitled Drag Queen at 16 was shown on BBC Three as part of their season about young people with amazing stories to tell, few thought that a 16-year-old who wanted to attend his school Prom dressed in drag, would provide the seeds for a successful stage musical and film. That is not…

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The Titfield Thunderbolt, Warehouse Theatre, Ilminster

AGAINST a background of doom and gloom, it’s hardly surprising that theatregoers are champing at the bit for a chance to return to venues as audiences watching their favourites, friends and families on stage again. It would be difficult to imagine a more perfect play than Philp Goulding’s version of the famous film The Titfield…

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Looking Good Dead, Theatre Royal, Bath

IN the classic David Lean film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, several storylines, important in the books, have virtually been edited out in order to make the narrative flow more smoothly and quickly. Watching this,  Shaun McKenna’s fifth stage adaptation of a Peter James novel, that there were just too many…

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Afterplay, Studio Theatre Salisbury

IMAGINE yourself to be a famous playwright who, in later life, realises that a character from a play and another written three years later were actually the soul-mates each yearned for. In Afterplay, Brian Friel, sometimes called “the Irish Chekhov”, takes the work of the Russian writer and introduces Andrey from Three Sisters to Sonia…

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The Good Life, Bath Theatre Royal and touring

THE Good Life, which started in 1975 and ran for three years and four series, has become one of the best loved television sitcoms of all time. John Esmonde and Bob Larby created four characters who were indelibly personified by Felicity Kendall, Richard Briers, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington. Each of the 30 episodes lasted…

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9 to 5, the Musical, Bristol Hippodrome

TWO powerful women with iron wills and  a shrewd sense of business are behind the successes of  both 9 to 5 , the film, and  9 to 5  the musical. It was the politically active dual Academy Award winning actress Jane Fonda who in 1980 had the idea of highlighting sexual harassment in the workplace…

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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, MAST and touring

WASHINGTON Irving’s famous Gothic tale about the dark goings-on at Sleepy Hollow, a Dutch settlement north of Tarrytown (later New York), has provided rich inspiration for theatre and film makers over the years since 1820 when it was written, in Birmingham. Now Tilted Wig has take up the artistic baton, commissioning an inventive new adaptation…

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