ONE of the 21st century’s biggest selling thrillers, The Da Vinci Code, is on stage at Salisbury Playhouse until Saturday 3rd May in a dramatic and technically impressive production, directed by Chelsea Walker, with a script adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel from Dan Brown’s 2003 novel. Professor Robert Langdon and fellow cryptologist Sophie…
WINDROSE Rural Media Trust has a new team at the helm, fir the first time in the more than 40 years since it was founded by Trevor Bailey, who has retired but will remain as a trustee. Three women have taken over the charity, which works across Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire on educational, archival and…
A SERIES of creative workshops for young people is being run over the Easter holidays at the Neeld Community Arts Centre in Chippenham, by Rag and Bone Arts CIC and Knapsack Productions. The project is supported by funding from the National Lottery and the government’s Million Hours scheme to help young people to work with…
TRIBUTES have poured in for Tanya Bruce-Lockhart, former director of Beaminster Festival and founder and director of Bridport Literary Festival, who died suddenly on Saturday 5th April at the age of 81. A familiar and much-loved figure in both Bridport and Beaminster, Tanya had been at the heart of cultural life in West Dorset since…
I FREELY admit that I am a great fan of the wonderful BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, and the shamefully underrated Benjamin Whitrow’s study of Mr Bennet. So when I first came across this spoof of Jane Austen’s novel, I arrived full…
TRAVELLERS have been writing about their journeys for millennia – the Greek writer and geographer Pausanias, born in 110AD in Asia Minor, a province of the Roman Empire, is generally considered to be the world’s first travel writer. His 21st century successors have trekked to the remotest locations, into rainforests, across the Antarctic, up the…
WE are quite used to opera singers taking a break after singing a strenuous role, but when two leading ladies are announced for a musical, you presume that they will alternate week by week during a year-long tour, which started earlier this month in Sunderland and ends on 4th April 2026 in Leeds. After watching…
PATRICK Hamilton’s Gaslight, first seen in 1938, has a long and powerful legacy, including a new word for the English language and legislation recognising the coercive control that is at the core of the play. Frome Drama has chosen it to launch the 2025 season, and their production at the Merlin is directed by Richard…
IF you think you know Alice in Wonderland, you are in for a delightful musical surprise at Bridport Arts Centre on Friday 4th April, at 7.30pm, when Platform 4 come to town. A gig theatre journey … for the curious ,,, and the curiouser, Platform 4’s The Alice Project brings this classic tale to the…
IF you haven’t yet seen the BAFTA and Oscar-winning Conclave, there are several opportunities with Moviola in April, when it is one of the most in-demand films, on screen at Codford (Woolstore Theatre), Westbury-sub-Mendip, Winterslow, Beaminster (Public Hall), Hawkchurch, Norton sub Hamdon, Winsford, Shepton Montague, Hanging Langford, Wookey Hole, Motcombe, Beer, Castle Cary (Caryford Community…