SHERIDAN’S wonderful comedy The Rivals, origin of Mrs Malaprop and regularly described as “timeless” proves its versatile longevity in Jack Absolute Flies Again, a new Battle of Britain-set adaptation by Richard Bean, who re-wrote Goldoni as One Man, Two Guvnors, and actor Oliver Chris. It is a marvellously inventive reworking, set at Malaprop House, where…
GOODNESS, life is complicated these days, isn’t it? Increasing numbers of people question their identities, finding much on-line support for dual, triple or even multiple personalities. Theatre goers support horror rom coms that give that extra live edge to the oft-viewed favourite movies. And we all have to face the issues that social media and…
BRIDPORT’s atmospheric Electric Palace continues a season celebrating a centenary of cinema on Thursday 30th April, musician and film historian Neil Brand marks the centenary of Laurel and Hardy’s 1926 movie debut, 45 Minutes from Hollywood – the following year they became an official comedy partnership.
TWO popular small touring theatre companies have got together to produce a new comedy, General Medical Emergency Ward 10, which continues at Tacchi Morris Arts Centre at Taunton on 21st April. Award‑winning Dyad Productions and Company Gavin Robertson have reimagined the worlds of Holby City, Casualty, ER, Grey’s Anatomy, Doctors and many more in this…
WHEN Stephen Moffatt’s play The Unfriend opened at Chichester’s Minerva Studio in 2019, Joe Biden was the US President and Trump was a ghastly memory, subject of conversations on cruise liners between Peter and Debbie, British parents of teenage children, and Elsa, a charismatic Coloradan with a rather peculiar past. Mark Gatiss made his stage…
PERFORMANCE poet Luke Wright has taken his own story of adoption and turned it into a show that is part stand-up and part poetry. Later Life Letter, an evening of warm and honest thoughts, with poems, jokes and some music, returns to the south west from 23rd April to 25th April. Luke shares the story…
A PLAY that began as a 20-minute short has been developed into a full-length solo show, which Dorsetborn is premiering at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre on Wednesday and Thursday 15th and 16th April. Described as a romcom-thriller, Lessons from Teacher x explores love, suspicion and the warring roles we play in adult life. Cam is…
THE indisputable star of MPO Musical Theatre’s production of Betty Blue Eyes at Milborne Port village hall is Betty herself – and that’s just as it should be. There is a great song entitled Steal the Pig in Stiles and Drewe’s musical version of Alan Bennett’s 1984 film A Private Function, and the endlessly inventive…
ANYONE who watches the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow is sure to have been impressed with the deep knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm of military historian Mark Smith, who is coming to the Electric Palace at Bridport on Wednesday 15th April. Mark Smith, a man who can read a line of medals like most of us can read…
THE new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Sarah Mullally, made a classic pilgrimage from London to Canterbury before her recent installation as the Anglican church’s first female archbishop. Hopefully she had some entertaining moments amid the serious intent of her journey, but it’s doubtful she had quite the rumbustious time that Chaucer’s pilgrims enjoyed…