Festivals news

Cerne’s small but perfectly formed festival

  CERNE Abbas has long hosted one of the West Country’s most delightful music festivals, for years featuring the Gaudier Ensemble, but now scaled back to just two days, 19th and 20th July at the beautiful and historic St Mary’s Church, and nearby Ashton Farm. Still one of the musical jewels of the summer, the…

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Celebrating choral music at Salisbury Cathedral

THE peripatetic Southern Cathedrals Festival comes to Salisbury this year, from Wednesday 16th to Saturday 19th July, with a programme of services and concerts that celebrate the beauty and power of choral and organ music. The annual festival brings together the choirs of Chichester, Salisbury and Winchester Cathedrals to present choral music at its finest….

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Women reclaiming the stage at Exeter

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…

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Is A River Alive? Robert Macfarlane at Bath Literature Festival

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,…

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Ancient music in an ancient setting

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…

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Celebrating dance at Bridport

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…

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Thought-provoking writers at Bath

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…

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Look up, take flight with Salisbury Festival

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…

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Silver jubilee for Wylye Valley Art Trail

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…

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