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 walled garden at Hatch House near Tisbury is a beautiful place at any time of the year, but it is at its most magical in July when the Covent Garden Dance Company brings its mini-festival, Ballet Under the Stars, nicknamed the “Glyndebourne of dance”, this year from 25th to 27th July. Founder-director Matt Brady…
PRONOUNS have become weirdly political in the last few years – it is all-too-easy to cause offence by using the wrong one when addressing or referring to a person who has adopted “they” and “their” as their preferred form. Author, environmental campaigner, poet and philosopher Robert Macfarlane encounters the same problem in his new book,…
THE picturesque West Somerset village of Dunster, on the edge of Exmoor, is famous for several things, including its castle, its Yarn Market, the medieval Gallox (“Lovers”) packhorse bridge, the tithe barn and the beautiful late medieval Priory of St George. This church is the main venue for another important Dunster attraction, the music festival…
THE first Bridport Dance Festival takes place over the weekend 23rd and 24th May at venues around the town, including the arts centre and the Electric Palace. The programme ranges across the dance spectrum, from tango to tap. With workshops, performance and free events there is something for all ages and dance interests, activities for…
CELEBRITY names may tend to grab the headlines at book festivals, but the real meat of the event will always be the literary writers, the Booker prize-winners and those whose books make us think, tell us things we didn’t know we needed to know, prod us into thinking more deeply or excite our imagination in…
GARETH Machin, artistic director of Wiltshire Creative – Salisbury Playhouse, Salisbury Arts Centre and Salisbury International Arts Festival – urged audiences to let their imaginations take flight when he launched the 2025 festival programme, running from Saturday 24th May to Sunday 8th June. He said: “A festival is an opportunity to let imaginations soar and this…
THE millennium was not only the dawn of a new century, locally it marked the launch of a new celebration of visual art. Wylye Valley Art Trail, the brainchild of Crockerton-based artist Nick Andrew, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, from Saturday 3rd to Sunday 11th May. In the quarter-century since the launch, this eight-day…
BATH’s biggest free party kicks off this year’s festival on Friday 16th May in the new-traditional colourful way with music for every taste – acoustic, pop, blues, folk, funk/soul, jazz, blues and indie/rock through to choral and classical. You really are invited to put on your dancing shoes and let your hair down as the…
DORSET Opera Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary at Bryanston School’s Coade Hall this year, following its move to Blandford from its original home at Sherborne School. This year’s festival will run from 22nd to 26th July, and will include two formal dinners in Bryanston House. The opera programme is thrilling, with Verdi’s cruel but musically…