CONCEPTUAL artist Ben Oakley is bringing a collection of work by ten artists, From The City To The Sea, to the gallery at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre, opening on 7th March and running to 19th April. Ben explains: “After creating the Ben Oakley Gallery in 2010 as a platform for emerging artists, we have now…
THE priceless 13th century Sarum Master Bible is going go on public display for the first time at Salisbury Cathedral, from 28th February to 20th March, following a successful fundraising campaign by Friends of the Nations’ Libraries. The Bible is a manuscript of exceptional artistic value with great significance to Salisbury. It is just 17cm…
“A stage where everyone’s story can be told” BATH’s Theatre Royal has received planning permission for Venue 4, a new community studio theatre for the public on St John’s Place. Subject to a fundraising campaign, Venue 4 will be a new home for the theatre’s Engage adult participation programme and will offer a range of…
THE new show at the Barn Theatre is all about the difficulty of finding a new James Bond at the same time as the legacy of the founders comes under threat from franchising corporate takeover. By the time I got to Cirencester to catch up with the production, news had just been announced in the…
FOR the second year running, Folde nature bookshop at Shaftesbury has been named as a regional and country finalists in the British Book Awards. Last year the shop, at the top of Gold Hill, got through to the finals of the awards, which are known as the NIBBIEs. The awards are organised by The Bookseller…
ONE of the most highly-praised and popular television shows of all time, Alan Bleasdale’s BAFTA-winning Boys From The Blackstuff visits Bath in James Graham’s powerful stage adaptation, from Tuesday 25th February to Saturday 1st March. Directed by Kate Wasserberg, the show brings to the stage the 1980s Liverpool of Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser…
FOR all its psychological trappings, this is at heart a true whodunit thriller, as five characters have reason and motive to be the killer. In true Agatha Christie style, all the clues and red herrings are laid out before us, leading us down one false trail after another. The big difference in this skilful stage…
DAVID Copperfield, Betsey Trotwood, Mr Micawber, Peggotty, Steerforth, Uriah Heep … it is a roll call of some of the most famous characters in literature, all from the same novel by the multi-talented story-teller David Copperfield. And local actors of all ages have a chance to be involved when Bath Theatre Royal stages its David…
IT would be hard to imagine two artists whose work is more different than landscape painter Anthony Garratt and wood engraver Howard Phipps, but their very different styles – Garratt’s massive colour-saturated canvases and Phipps’ intricately detailed tiny prints – are oddly complementary. Both are artists at the top of their game – and they…
IT may be some years before Bond fans get another film to enjoy, but at Cirencester’s adventurous Barn Theatre, you can enjoy the challenges of casting the world’s most famous spy. As Jordan Walter, writer of A Role to Die For, puts it, “It’s no laughing matter.” But that’s what audiences are doing as the…