FANS of The Archers, the world’s longest-running radio soap opera, will be beating a path to Cirencester’s adventurous Barn Theatre from 1st September to 1st October, when the intimate venue stages the world premiere of Haywire, a comedy that celebrates the “not-so-everyday story of how The Archers was born.” Written by Tim Stimpson, and directed…
IF you fancy taking part in a pantomime based on one of the best-known and loved of all fantasy stories, make a note of Monday 15th September, the day when Shaftesbury Arts Centre’s music and drama group is holding an interest evening for the 2026 pantomime, Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s unique and timeless classic…
FREE PERFORMANCE AT SWANAGE FOLK FEST THE attention of new generations of music lovers has been drawn to Woody Guthrie with the success of the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and it is fortuitous timing for Somerset-based singer and songwriter Reg Meuross, whose brilliant new song cycle, Fire and Dust, was ready at much the…
RALPH Fiennes, artistic director of Bath Theatre Royal’s 2025 summer season, turns from acting in Grace Pervades to directing, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, at the theatre from 15th August to 6th September. One of the most delightful romatic comedies, it is set in the Forest of Arden, where love is always in the air….
HAVING made her West End debut playing Jenny in this play, Lily Allen, at present drawing capacity houses to Bath’s Ustinov Studio playing the neurotic, emotionally strangled Hedda in a reworking of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, must be tempted to slip across to the Bristol Hippodrome to see Stacey Dooley, who also made her West End…
COVID changed many lives, not least for Ros Huxley, who quit her full time work to write, after many years in the creative industries and latterly as a charity fund-raiser. After writing several short stories, she has now published her first novel, Kendal Acts Up, the story of an unusual woman who pretends to be…
DORCHESTER’s Tatterdemalion, who began as the band of the New Hardy Players, celebrate their tenth anniversary of folky fun and colourful ceilidhs with a musical family get-together at the Corn Exchange on Saturday 13th September. For 10 years, Tatterdemalion have bounced around stages, bringing traditional tunes known to Dorset people 200 years ago to life,…
VISITORS to Moors Valley Country Park near Ringwood can enjoy an unusual sound installation, Canopy, created for this year’s Inside Out Dorset festival, from 12th to 21st September, by Dorset-based artist Lorna Rees, of Gobbledegook Theatre,. It draws on contributions from a range of people including scientists, artists, folk musicians, arborists and Year 4 children…
THE ancient coastal town of Christchurch, the deep woods of Moors Valley and the dramatic ruins of Corfe Castle provide the backdrop and venues for events and installations across Dorset at this year’s Inside OutDorset festival, which runs from 12th to 21st September across the county. The biennial event is an international outdoor arts festival,…
ROYAL Ballet star Meaghan Grace Hinkis brings a dance gala to Dorset over the weekend of 13th and 14th September. The three performances in the grounds of Minterne House, north of Dorchester, are raising funds for the performing arts. Between 2020 and 2022, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, First Soloist with the Royal Ballet, staged three weekend…