RUSSIAN playwright Nikolai Gogol perfectly captured the pomposity, predilection for back-handers, flirtatious peccadillos and general self-aggrandisement that is universally noted in local (and national) government in his 1836 play The Government Inspector. The reality of political corruption is as timeless as it is international. There have been many adaptations of the original (just called Inspector…
CELEBRATE Voice, Salisbury’s exciting autumn music festival, returns this year, from 22nd October to 1st November, with a programme that ranges from a new production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to the golden era of Hollywood, from a singalong Mikado to the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and his quest to retrieve his wife from the…
YEOVIL Literary Festival, now in its 12th year, has become one of the most eagerly anticipated book events in the region. This year the festival runs from 17th to 27th October, at venues including Westlands, Yeovil Library and St John the Baptist Church. The line-up of best-sellers, Booker Prize-winners and exciting new and established writers…
THE great Old English epic poem of Beowulf gets a remarkable new look when the award-winning circus company Nikki & JD and dance-theatre company Lost Dog strip the story back to its physical essentials in Fireside, an open air circus, dance and theatre performance with fire and live music, on the Pavilion field at Gillingham…
SHERBORNE International Film Festival returns over the weekend 16th to 19th October at the Powell Theatre in Abbey Road, with the usual compelling mix of classic and new foreign films, including the multi Oscar winning Korean black comedy Parasite and Indochine, an epic drama set in south east Asia in the years before the Vietnam…
EXETER’s Northcott Theatre has announced its first 2026 Made By Exeter Northcott production – Forever Young by Erik Gedeon is a musical play that blends big laughs, heartfelt moments and iconic songs. The cast will include South West actors from past Northcott productions and pantomimes and the production will be the first musical play to…
DORCHESTER Corn Exchange gallery is the setting for a powerful and challenging exhibition, Ungrievable Lives, from Saturday 18th to Monday 20th October, open from 10am to 4pm, with free entry. There is also a free panel discussion on Saturday from 4 to 6pm, and a diversity flag workshop on Sunday from 11am. Ungrievable Lives brings…
OPERA Project, the company that first appeared in the South West in 1996 at the Iford Festival, where 14 productions were staged over the next eight years, moved to Bedminster’s Tobacco Factory in 2003 and has been performing in the former cigar packing factory sporadically ever since. The Iford productions saw student friends Jonathan Lyness…
NOEL Coward’s timeless comedy Blithe Spirit was just the thing war-ravaged Londoners needed in 1941, and it might just provide the lift we need in these crazy, frightening days 84 years later. Anthony Banks’ new production is played out on a stylish set designed by Terry Parsons, an opulent Art Deco drawing room with its…
GALLOWS humour is a curious aspect of the human psyche – laughter is the best antidote to fear, probably. The laughs are dark and the subject matter even darker when Ha Hum Ah Theatre brings its new play, Making A Killing, on tour locally, with dates starting on 28th October at Taunton, and coming to…