WHEN Laura Wade decided to rework W Somerset Maughan’s highly successful 1926 play The Constant Wife and look at the story through modern eyes, whilst keeping the same storyline she based her script on Maughan’s concept rather than using the original text. Lyric Hammersmith’s associate director Nicholai La Barrie, who directs this joint production with…
A RARELY performed Noel Coward comedy is coming to Bath Theatre Royal – The Marquise, starring Juliet Aubrey, Simon Shepherd and Tristan Gemmill, is on a national tour and will be at Bath from Tuesday 16th to Saturday 20th June. This romantic comedy, originally set in 18th-century France and now given a 1930s updating, was…
BADGER’S Drift will get a bit of a break from homicide when the curtain comes down on Midsomer Murders at Bath on Saturday 14th June – but not for long. The success of this first staging of the popular TV series on its opening UK tour, which started in November 2025, means it has 14 more…
CRIME and punishment, deportation and the consequences of artistic deprivation are all big news at the moment, in a way they perhaps weren’t in 1991 when Timberlake Wertenbaker wrote her iconic political drama Our Country’s Good. She was inspired by visits to Wormwood Scrubs prison, and the effects that exposure to theatre had on long-term…
ONE of ITV’s best-loved murder mystery series, Midsomer Murders is now a successful stage show, and the premiere productions of The Killing at Badger’s Drift is at Bath Theatre Royal from Tuesday 9th to Saturday 13th June. The cast is headed by Daniel Casey as DCI Tom Barnaby, the role first made famous by John…
JULIUS Caesar is centre stage at Grange Opera Festival, where Sarah Brady (pictured) captures the magnetic power of Cleopatra. Christian Curnyn, well-known to local opera lovers from the former Iford Opera Festival (near Bath), conducts his Early Opera Company to accompany the singers, led by countertenor Tim Mead, as Caesar. One of Handel’s most popular…
WHEN I told a friend that I was going to see a show called We Will Rock You, a jukebox musical based around the music of Queen, they replied “Can’t be done”. When I asked why, they said “Because Freddy Mercury sang all of Queen’s songs and, as you can tell by the lack of…
CHALKE History Festival, the UK’s leading celebration of history, will return from 22nd to 28th June to bring the past vividly to life through a rich programme of top-class talks, wide-ranging discussions and dynamic living history experiences. The line-up includes classicist Mary Beard, radio presenter and journalist James Naughtie, commentator Anne Applebaum, former White House…
THOMAS Hardy was famously shy, even occasionally slipping out of the back door when people arrived at the front of Max Gate, his home in Dorchester. Now the National Trust has replanted part of a hedge in front of the house, which formerly shielded the writer from prying eyes. Ahead of Thomas Hardy’s birthday on…
MATILDA Temperley, an accomplished professional photographer who now runs Somerset Cider Brandy and Burrow Hill Cider, the businesses her father Julian founded, is the new patron of Somerset Art Works. This year the visual arts festival in September will be celebrating Somerset’s rich history and diversity under the theme of “cultural connections.” Matilda knows the…