BATH was buzzing on Saturday night – the city’s famous rugby club was winning a big match against Leicester and excited fans were gathering round big screens in bars to celebrate the successes and camp glitz of Eurovision. The atmosphere in the beautiful Abbey was perhaps a little more muted, but the enthusiasm was palpable…
SOME people these days state their intention to work until they can retire at 45 and enjoy their houses, cars, children, pastimes and leisure while they are still comparatively young. And comparing them to Peggy Seeger, that’s sort of half-grown. The American-born singer-songwriter, half-sister of folk singer Pete Seeger, is still perhaps best known as…
ONE of the best-loved plays of the past 50 years, Educating Rita, comes to Cirencester’s tiny but adventurous Barn Theatre from Friday 16th May to Saturday 28th June. Willy Russell’s two-hander, originally staged in 1980 with Julie Walters in the title role, and three years later filmed with Walters again and Michael Caine as the…
HAD Sir William Schwenck Gilbert been alive today, I would take money on his including the latest and plupenultimate president of the United States and his South African top-line-of-keyboard-iconic tech bro sidekick, as well as those for whom personal pronouns are more important than personal relationships, in his brilliant patter songs … so thank goodness…
WHAT do you do if you inherit a traditional shoe factory that is about to be swamped by cheap overseas imports. If your name is Clark, you convert the main factory site into a shopping village and introduce a smaller range of specialist shoes. Kinky Boots, for all its flamboyant story and big scale musical…
ANTHONY Shaffer’s edge-of-your-seat thriller Sleuth comes to the Swan Theatre in Yeovil from 19th to 24th May. Some may remember the 1972 movie, now a classic of its genre, which was filmed at Athelhampton. The Sway production is directed by Sarah Ambrose, it has Robert Graydon as Andrew Wyke and Chris Williamson as Milo Tindle,…
HOW do you set about reviewing a play? That’s a question that lots of people ask, and the answer is complicated. For anyone who has been doing it as long as I have, it is a combination of experience, knowledge of the work, previous productions and performances, the effect THIS production has on THIS audience…
HILARY Tones takes the lead in her own play, C’Est La Vie, Sarah Bernhardt and Me, at Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio on Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th May. The play tells the story of the celebrated and pioneering 19th century French actress who performed worldwide, becoming the first global superstar. An actress nervously awaits…
MOST of us would agree that the idea of being buried alive is unspeakably terrifying. This is the starting point of a dark thriller, Die Before You Die, which is getting its second local screening at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre cinema on Tuesday 13th May, at 7.30pm, followed by a Q&A session with the director…
POOLE At Dunkirk, a community exhibition that highlights the part local people played in the 1940 evacuation, is at the heart of the historic port’s VE Day commemorations, on at the gallery at the Lighthouse arts centre until Tuesday 27th May. Curated by Poole Maritime Trust with the support of a range of local organisations,…