ONE of the West Country’s most delightful festivals, Burton Bradstock Music and Art Festival, returns to the West Dorset coast from 10th to 17th August. The programme of classical, jazz, folk and chamber music in St Mary’s Church is complemented by an art exhibition which is a showcase for artists from around the region, in…
AFTER six years in its second venue, Belcombe Court in Bradford on Avon, Iford Arts’ If Opera moves to the beautiful surroundings of Church Farm, Wingfield, south of the town, for the 2025 season. This year’s festival runs from 7th to 17th August. The Clare Teal picnic prom on Sunday 10th August is now sold…
THE famous Time Team geodome will be set up in the grounds of Corfe Castle during the weekend of Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th July, with exciting, interactive activities for all ages, as part of the family fun, walks, talks and film screenings that make up the Festival of Archaeology. The festival is a UK…
SIDMOUTH Folk Festival, one of the biggest events in the folk and traditional music and dance calendar, is 70 this year. It is not the 70th festival (Covid and other factors intervened), but this seaside celebration of folk music, dance and song began in 1955, and it’s back this year from 1st to 8th August,…
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…
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…
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….
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,…