MERE Literary Festival opens on Wednesday 9th October with a chef who has put his knife skills to good use in his first crime novel and ends with a serious investigation into the controversial NHS child gender service. In between, it features a remarkable Edwardian, a challenging look at demographics and an ageing population, violence…
THE line-up for this year’s Bath Children’s Literature Festival, from Friday 27th September to Sunday 6th October, includes some of the country’s best-loved writers – Cressida Cowell, Michael Rosen, Cornelia Funke and Jacqueline Wilson. The organisers of one of the biggest children’s books festivals in the world have put together a programme of more than…
ELEVATE Festival, a celebration of new work by local writers, companies and performers, returns to Bath Theatre Royal for a second year, from 2nd to 7th September in the Egg theatre. The festival is presented by the theatre’s Engage programme, which is dedicated to creating participatory opportunities across Bath for creatively curious adults and numerous…
PORTLAND’s b-side festival, which this year runs from Thursday 5th to Sunday 8th September, has the theme Who Do We Think We Are? – telling some of the many stories that make up the lives of the residents and visitors of the mysterious island, exploring its history and culture in many different art forms and media,…
HOT on the heels of his televised efforts at conducting Vivaldi in Venice, the barrister, judge and television presenter Rob Rinder will be a special guest at this year’s Purbeck Chamber Music Festival, in conversation with festival artistic director, Natalie Clein, on Friday 30th August. The music-loving lawyer and polymath will be discussing with the…
THE last of the summer’s opera and music festivals, If Opera at Bradford on Avon, runs this year from 23rd to 31st August, and brings two of the greatest operas in the repertoire to eager audiences. Spawned by the original Iford Arts Festival, which ran at Iford Manor from the 1980s to 2018, If Opera…
THE summer folk festival programme continues with Lyme Folk Weekend, from Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th August. Lyme Folk Weekend is focused with four big events at the Marine Theatre, starting on Friday 23rd with Steve Knightley, half of the West Country’s favourite folk duo Show of Hands, followed on Saturday by rising star Angeline…
Beowulf at Bournemouth: Bournemouth’s exciting Arts by the Sea festival returns from 27th to 29th September with a line-up of colourful, creative, eccentric and dramatic visual and performing arts events, on the broad theme of Taste. One of the headline shows will be Lost Dog Dance’s Fireside, a retelling of the epic Anglo Saxon poem,…
VIRTUOSO musicians, led by violinist David Juritz, return to Burton Bradstock in August for the Dorset seaside village’s annual festival of music and art. The festival runs from Saturday 10th to Sunday 18th, with the annual art exhibition in the village hall throughout the week, and music, mainly in St Mary’s Church, from Sunday to…
THIS year’s Archaeology Festival at Salisbury Museum, in the Cathedral Close, on Saturday and Sunday 27th and 28th July, will be one of the biggest for years, with a packed programme of events in the museum garden, the new hall and a demonstration marquee, featuring talks, participatory activities, folk music and more. As well as…