The Arts Section

Playhouse Creatures, Bath Theatre Royal

APRIL de Angelis’s play Playhouse Creatures, commissioned by Sphinx Theatre in Leicester in 1993, might have been a historical drama about the life of the famous Mary Betterton, known as the first actress of the English stage – or about Nell Gwynn, the orange seller who enraptured King Charles II. But it is much more…

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Rewilding in Dorset

REWILDING is quite a buzz word these days, but what does it actually mean? And did you know there is a thriving rewinding project in Dorset? Learn more about it at a Gillingham Action for Nature meeting, on Thursday 1st May, at 7pm at Gillingham Vicarage schoolrooms. Many people will have heard of, or even…

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The House Party, Bristol Old Vic and touring

ALTHOUGH they were written one hundred years apart, in 1772 and 1888 with one throwing the spotlight on French nobility and the other on Swedish society, there are many parallels between Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses and August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Both feature debauched nobility corrupted by money and the absolute power that…

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The Witches of Eastwick, Milborne Port Opera

IT has been 12 years since the musical adaptation of The Witches of Eastwick, a show spawned by the 1987 film that followed hot on the heels of the publication of John Updike’s novel in 1984, was released for amateur performance. Now it arrives on stage in Milborne Port, providing a very different show for…

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Shaftesbury Arts Centre

Tom Stoppard knew all about it when he wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, back in 1966 when he was still in his 20s. This is a play about two of the minor characters in Hamlet. As the murder mystery of Hamlet’s father unfolds around them, Hamlet’s two, interchangeable, childhood friends wait around until someone…

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When women took the stage

APRIL De Angelis’s Playhouse Creatures is a marvellous, funny, touching and convincing imagining of the lives and experiences of the first women to act on the public stage, during the Restoration monarchy of Charles II. A new production,starring Anna Chancellor and Katherine Kingsley, is coming to the Theatre Royal Bath from Monday 28th April to…

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Cruel Intentions, Bath Theatre Royal and touring

IF you look up “Cruel Intentions” on Wikipedia you have the choice between the film and the “franchise” … and really, that says it all. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos wrote his infamous epistolary novel back in 1782, and many adaptations have followed, on stage, film and television. Perhaps Jordan Ross, Lindsey Rosin and Roger Kumble…

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A 90s take on a classic black comedy

CRUEL Intentions, The 90s Musical, comes to Bath Theatre Royal on its first UK tour, direct from the West End, from Wednesday 23rd to Saturday 26th April. The show is based on the film of the same name, and is inspired by Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the infamous epistolary novel about sex, social mores and cruel…

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The Da Vinci Code, Salisbury Playhouse

DAN Brown’s 2003 mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code is a worldwide best seller – 80 million copies were sold in the first six years – as well as the cause of international controversy, criticised as a historically and scientifically inaccurate attack on the Catholic church. It was filmed in 2006, again delighting audiences…

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