THE story of Medea echoes down the blood-stained centuries. Hers is the ultimate crime – the murder of her own children. When we hear her story or read newspaper reports of a woman setting fire to her own home with her children in it, or driving her car with her children over a cliff, we…

RODNEY Ackland was once described as an English Chekhov. Then like his contemporary, Terence Rattigan, his popularity fell off the cliff as the new wave of realistic or “kitchen sink” plays stole the headlines and the audiences. Gradually the witty and sharp Ackland has been reinstated in the affections of both theatres and audiences. His…

IDIOT Child, one of Bristol’s many adventurous small theatre companies, opened its latest work in the quirky and intimate setting of Loco Klub at Temple Meads station, at the start of an eight-venue national tour. Performed by Susie Riddell, Adam Fuller and Emma Keaveny-Roys, the play continues the company policy of making playful and peculiar…

MUSIC-lovers in the South West have a very special treat this spring, as Dorset resident Sir John Eliot Gardiner gives the UK premiere of his Monteverdi 450 trilogy in Bristol at the start of its international journey. The first concert, in April, was of Il Ritorno D’Ulisse in Patria, and the final offering is L’Orfeo…

Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune Lalo: Symphonie espagnole Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant James Gaffigan: Conductor Alexandra Soumm: Violin I ONCE asked a member of the BSO if he ever got bored with playing the familiar mainstream pieces of the classical repertoire – pieces like Rimsky-Korsakov’s much-loved suite ‘Scheherazade’.  “What you’ve…

ELGAR’S masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius was the choice for one of the major concerts in this year’s Sherborne Abbey Festival.  Cardinal Newman’s original poem, published in 1865, is a vision of what happens to a man’s soul after death.  Some thirty five years later, Elgar set a shortened version of the poem as an…

“IT’s a privilege to be involved in the production and to be speaking so many of Dylan Thomas’s great lines – although it’s been a real challenge to learn them,” said Elizabeth Woodgate, a newcomer to Shaftesbury Arts Centre stage who was the Second Voice in this powerful production of Thomas’s theatrical masterpiece. You know…

Weber: Clarinet Concerto No. 1 Mahler: Symphony No. 5 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Mark Derudder Daniele Rustioni: Conductor Daniel Ottensamer: Clarinet A PACKED Lighthouse audience welcomed two young rising stars of the European classical music scene for their debuts with the BSO in this concert of Weber and Mahler, and after their performances here I’m…

SURELY Guys and Dolls is one of those musicals that will always be on stage somewhere, and with so many Great American Songbook entries, it will never fade from the national and local repertoire. The subjects of gangsters, religion, love and gambling are almost universal, and there are goodies and baddies galore. GSMCS never fail to…

HAVING enjoyed Sasha Regan’s all-male productions of The Pirates of Penzance and H.M.S. Pinafore, I had been looking forward to the premiere of this – her third G and S – since the start of the Easter hols. The show, set in 1950’s England, when life was simple and the staple diet was Enid Blyton, we were…