BOURNEMOUTH Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor Mark Wigglesworth will be conducting 22 performances across the new 2025-26 season, which takes the region’s major orchestra to venues in major towns and smaller centres including Bristol, Exeter, Sherborne and Taunton, as well as its home at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre, where the season opens on Wednesday 1st October….
ILLUSTRATOR Gabrielle Parker’s delightful, surreal and whimsical creations will be celebrated at this year’s Arts by the Sea, the South West’s biggest free celebration of art, culture, people and place, returning to Bournemouth from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th September. Gabrielle Parker, the 2025 Artist in Residence, is an Arts University Bournemouth graduate, who creates…
AN exhibition, at Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury, from 27th September to 10th January 2026, A Life Outside: Hope Bourne on Exmoor, offers a new appraisal of the work and life of the Exmoor writer and artist. Created in partnership with The Exmoor Society, which cares for The Hope L Bourne Collection, the exhibition considers…
WE all have our favourite shoes – they may be red carpet-worthy, six-inch high Jimmy Choos or comfortable if unglamorous Allbirds, but shoes follow the footprints of human history. Fashionable or functional, delicate or dependable, shoes are an essential part of our lives. And while other brands may come and go, one name remains proudly…
VISITORS to Moors Valley Country Park near Ringwood can enjoy an unusual sound installation, Canopy, created for this year’s Inside Out Dorset festival, from 12th to 21st September, by Dorset-based artist Lorna Rees, of Gobbledegook Theatre,. It draws on contributions from a range of people including scientists, artists, folk musicians, arborists and Year 4 children…
THE ancient coastal town of Christchurch, the deep woods of Moors Valley and the dramatic ruins of Corfe Castle provide the backdrop and venues for events and installations across Dorset at this year’s Inside OutDorset festival, which runs from 12th to 21st September across the county. The biennial event is an international outdoor arts festival,…
ROYAL Ballet star Meaghan Grace Hinkis brings a dance gala to Dorset over the weekend of 13th and 14th September. The three performances in the grounds of Minterne House, north of Dorchester, are raising funds for the performing arts. Between 2020 and 2022, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, First Soloist with the Royal Ballet, staged three weekend…
YEOVIL Town Council has launched a public consultation on funding support for the development and reopening of the currently closed Octagon. The town council wants residents to give their views on whether it should contribute £3,964,500 (including Stamp Duty) towards the future of one of Yeovil’s most significant cultural venues that helps to support the…
SHAFTESBURY Fringe, three days of every kind of entertainment imaginable, returns to the historic Dorset town from 18th to 20th July, with a programme of more than 300 events (a record number) spread around 37 venues. As director Rob Neely says, it’s all about Shaftesbury: “From its very creation, Shaftesbury Fringe has acted as a…
AWARD-winning stage and screen star Ralph Fiennes directs a summer season of plays at Bath Theatre Royal, and plays the joint lead in the opening play, the world premiere of David Hare’s Grace Pervades, running in the theatre from Friday 27th June to Saturday 19th July. Fiennes, BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated star of Conclave, plays the…