HATED by academics, loved by children, Enid Blyton was a best-selling author whose works were excoriated by critics, banned by the BBC and hated by teachers and librarians. But what was she really like? Liz Grand portrays this controversial figure in The Secret Life of Enid Blyton, a play by Kit Hunter, coming to the…
MEET Percy, the very appealing star of his own show, coming to the Front Room at Weston-super-Mare on 17th May Percy is a puffling who loves his burrow a little too much. What he doesn’t realise, however, is that his entire flock are about to migrate south for the winter. If he doesn’t learn to…
WHEN Opera della Luna stages one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas, you know you are in for a great evening. So welcome back to Jeff Clarke’s company at Bath Theatre Royal, from Tuesday 13th to Saturday 17th May, with The Mikado, probably the best loved of all the Savoy Operas. This hilarious tale of…
CAROLINE Harker, who is at Salisbury Playhouse in a dark ghost story, The Croft, from 9th to 17th May, will be a familiar face to local audiences. Her previous appearances at the theatre have included Moira Buffini’s Maggie Thatcher-Queen Elizabeth II comedy Hand-Bagged, Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking and Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code. Arriving in…
LIKE most of Alan Ayckbourn’s 90-plus professionally presented plays, Just Between Ourselves started life at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, before going out on tour, with the author in tow continually tweaking the text, before finding its way onto London’s West End stage. I caught up with Alan Ayckbourn in Bridgwater Arts Centre when, in…
OVER the last quarter of a century, performance poet Luke Wright has built up a reputation as one of Britain’s most popular and entertaining performers, winning a host of awards along the way. His 2025 tour continues at Poole Lighthouse on 15th May and East Quay at Watchet on 16th May. During his long career,…
BRAM Stoker’s iconic Count Dracula takes centre stage at Salisbury’s Studio Theatre in Ashley Road from 19th to 24th May, when the award-winning company moves en masse to the Transylvanian castle where the story begins. English lawyer Jonathan Harker is invited to the castle, but he returns a changed man … Linda Hayman directs Richard…
LONDON Classic Theatre comes to Bath Theatre Royal from Monday 5tyh to Saturday 10th May with its 25th anniversary production, Alan Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves, directed by the company’s founder and artistic director Michael Cabot. Set in 1976, the play features five birthdays, two unhappy marriages and one possessive mother. Dennis tinkers in his garage,…
ONE of the world’s greatest cabaret singers and a brilliant song arranger, Barb Jungr comes to Taunton Brewhouse on Thursday 8th May, and Bridport’s Electric Palace on Saturday 10th, with Hallelujah on Desolation Row, a celebration of the songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. This show features her best and award-winning interpretations of songs…
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…