STEWART McPherson, who founded the Darwin200 Global Voyage to mark the bicentenary by retracing Darwin’s historic journey aboard HMS Beagle, returns to Sladers Yard gallery at West Bay on Thursday 14th August, to talk about the insights the explorers have learned about Darwin and his discoveries from the voyage and how best to carry forward…
ONE of the West Country’s most delightful festivals, Burton Bradstock Music and Art Festival, returns to the West Dorset coast from 10th to 17th August. The programme of classical, jazz, folk and chamber music in St Mary’s Church is complemented by an art exhibition which is a showcase for artists from around the region, in…
THE ever inventive Scratchworks Theatre comes to Dorset for two dates as part of the Artsreach summer programme of events and workshops for children. The Mushroom Show combines information and facts with fun, with a workshop and performance, at Litton Cheney community hall on Monday 18th August, and Tuesday 19th August at 11am at Alderholt…
THIS 250th anniversary year of the birth of Jane Austen must have seemed the perfect time to tour PD James’s murder mystery sequel to Austen’s most famous book, Pride and Prejudice. The James novel, published in 2011, was a pastiche in Austen style, and was very successfully adapted for television, getting a Christmas showing in…
THERE is grand opera in world-famous venues, country house opera in historic and beautiful gardens – and there is village opera at Oborne, the pretty little village close to Sherborne. Here local music lovers, with Jon and Jenny Fletcher of the Grange at Oborne hotel, have established a small but perfectly-formed summer festival which brings…
THE Miracle Theatre summer show is a perennial favourite with audiences across the south and west, and this year’s production, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, is no exception. Now returned to its home county of Cornwall for the last 2025 performances, the final cross-border show was at Sandford Orcas on the perfect evening of…
IN her 250th anniversary year, Jane Austen is everywhere, from straight plays and screenings of favourite television adaptations to films, comedies, spoofs and a new adaptation inspired by her most popular novel – Death Comes to Pemberley, coming to Bath Theatre Royal in a world premiere production from Tuesday 5th to Saturday 90th August. Pride…
A 1993 Play and Playgoers Year Book survey placed Yorkshire-born John Godber in third place behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn, as the most performed playwright in the UK. Those heady days of popularity, led by plays like Bouncers and Up ‘n’ Under (and Shakers, co-written with his wife Jane Thornton), may be behind this…
THE 17th century walled garden at Hatch House near Tisbury is a magical setting for any event, but it has a uniquely seductive atmosphere when the annual visit of Covent Garden Dance Company stages Ballet Under The Stars. Ballet at Hatch has become known as “the Glyndebourne of dance” – and it’s a fair comparison,…
SINGER and stage and screen actress Lily Allen comes to Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio, from 25th July to 23rd August, starring in the title role of Hedda, a new adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. The run in the intimate venue is sold out, with only returns available. Enigmatic and destructive, both of herself and…