I MUST have seen Michael Frayn’s enduringly hilarious play Noises Off more than a dozen times during my reviewing life, with TV stars, leading West End actors, the Number 3 touring professional companies that it sends up, and by amateurs. I have never seen a production so wonderfully inventive and brilliantly performed as that by…
RODGERS and Hammerstein’s last musical together, The Sound of Music, was first performed only 14 years after the end of the Second World War, when memories of Nazi incursions over Europe were fresh in the minds of audiences. Now, the details of that war are unfamiliar to younger viewers, but, thanks to the powerful story…
THE first performances of David Hare’s new play Grace Pervades offer a unique opportunity to theatre lovers – to sit in one of the country’s most beautiful theatres learning fascinating facts about Victorian theatre legends Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, from a stage on which they actually performed. And, for these days of breathless star-struckery,…
THE Shaftesbury Chamber Music Series ends its season ton Saturday 5th July with a concert at the Farrington Hall at Port Regis by the Aquinas Piano Trio. Once again series found Ruth Rogers joins Martin Cousin and Katherine Jenkinson, this time for a programme of works by Mozart, Ireland, Shostakovich and Brahms. The performance starts…
SHAFTESBURY Arts Centre will be bursting with the sounds of Rodgers and Hammerstein as audiences are transported to the Austrian Alps in the febrile days before the outbreak of World War II and the immortal songs of The Sound of Music. The centre’s Music and Drama Group has chosen the perennially popular musical for its…
IF you have reached the stage when you think “O no, not another juke box musical”, think again – because this stage version of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film leaves the rest of them trailing in its wake. Practically every number, from the spectacularly-staged The Sparkling Diamond to the haunting Nature Boy, fits the storyline, which…
AWARD-winning stage and screen star Ralph Fiennes directs a summer season of plays at Bath Theatre Royal, and plays the joint lead in the opening play, the world premiere of David Hare’s Grace Pervades, running in the theatre from Friday 27th June to Saturday 19th July. Fiennes, BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated star of Conclave, plays the…
SIDMOUTH’s Manor Pavilion theatre hosts its annual summer season of plays in repertory from Monday 23rd June to mid-September. The season, at the seaside town’s Manor Pavilion theatre, is now said to be the longest running continuous summer rep in the country. Over 12 weeks, local theatre-goers and holiday-makers are entertained with a programme of…
FORGET all the hype around The Traitors – the hottest, darkest game in town is The Witching Hour! ReBels Young Company, based at Plymouth’s Barbican Theatre, will bring this exciting and very different show to Dorchester Corn Exchange on 29th June as part of a long national tour. Black cats, broomsticks and pentagrams? It sounds…
THERE will be a second and longer season of summer rep at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, following last year’s successful inaugural season, with five popular plays on from 23rd July to 27th August. There’s something for everyone with comedies, thrillers and classic drama, including a Jane Austen adaptation, celebrating the great novelist’s 250th anniversary…