SINCE its formation in 2012, the Taunton based @2KTheatre has made extensive tours of Somerset, taking comedy and drama to many small venues where there no longer is a local non-professional company. Picking up several awards en route, they have presented classic comedies – Noel Coward’s Private Lives, Alan Bennet’s Habeus Corpus and The Lady…
BACK in the dark ages in Bournemouth, and every time a more sordid story emerged from the courts, my first editor used to delight us trainees with the mischievous quip “How unlike the home life of our own dear queen.” This extraordinary woman was so much a part of all our lives for so long…
EXETER’s Northcott Theatre is hosting a week-long celebration of women in the arts, Reclaim festival,from 9th to 14th June, at the city-centre Barnfield Theatre. The programme includes gatherings, workshops and performances, ranging from Bollywood dance to poetry performances and a daytime open mic gig for children. It’s the second year of the festival, described by…
THE attention of new generations of music lovers has been drawn to Woody Guthrie with the success of the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and it is fortuitous timing for Somerset-based singer and songwriter Reg Meuross, whose brilliant new song cycle, Fire and Dust, was ready at much the same time. The release of the…
PETE Machale, who graduated from the Arts University Bournemouth’s acting course in 2017 with a memorable performance as the White Rabbit in Alice, is back, but now as a playwright commissioned to create a new play based (loosely) on a bit of the history of the Palace Court Theatre, where students on the course now…
MICHAEL Morpurgo was more than a little sceptical when in 2007 the National Theatre decided to produce a stage version of his 1982 anti-war novel War Horse. Not surprisingly in that the story followed the adventures of a thoroughbred horse from foal to becoming one of the 62,000 (out of one million) horses taken over…
THIRTY years ago, two writers, Simon Corbie and Nobby Dimon, adapted John Buchan’s famous story of spies, derring-do and pre-war tension in London and the Highlands, into a play. It had been a successful Alfred Hitchcock film, updated from 1915 to 1935. Ten years later, Patrick Barlow took the play, shook it up and gave…
THE New Hardy Players, formed to celebrate the work of Dorset’s greatest writer, celebrate their 20th anniversary this year, touring A Few Crusted Characters from 6th to 15th June. The new play has been created from a series of short stories, and willl be performed at beautiful open air venues including Abbotsbury Swannery and Maumbury…
A NEW play that examines the unique relationship between the late Queen Elizabeth II and her dresser, Daisy Goodwin’s By Royal Appointment, has its world premiere at Bath Theatre Royal, from Thursday 5th to Saturday 14th June, before a UK tour. The play stars Anne Reid as the Queen and Caroline Quentin as The Dresser,…
IF you are among the many people who have been waiting for the latest episode in the Bridget Jones saga to reach your village hall, good news! This is the month when the hapless heroine, once again played by Renee Zellweger, tops the Moviola list, with screenings at Hawkchurch, Membury (Devon), Bourton, South Petherton (David…