The Arts Section

Elisabeth Frink – life and work

THE Dorset Museum at Dorchester is presenting a major exhibition of sculptor Dame Elisabeth Frink’s life and work, on until 21st April 2024. The works are drawn from the collection that Dorset Museum acquired from the Elisabeth Frink Estate in 2020, featuring sculptures, prints, drawings, and personal possessions. Many of these items, including working plasters…

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Twelve Angry Men, Bath Theatre Royal and touring

TELEVISION scriptwriter Reginald Rose was called to serve on a New York jury in 1954, and his experiences in the locked jury room inspired him to write what became his best-known play, performed countless times on stages across the English speaking world and famously filmed with Henry Fonda in the lead. It is a timelessly…

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Murdered to Death, MADS at the Lecture Hall, Mere

TWENTY years ago the members of Mere Amateur Dramatic Society staged Peter Gordon’s spoof murder mystery Murdered to Death, to great acclaim by the audience who named it the funniest play the company has ever done. So it’s no surprise that director Chris Wood (who played the more-than-bumbling Inspector Pratt in the 2003 production) decided…

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An honest look at the human diet

THE November event in the Tollard Talks series at Tollard Barn in Tollard Royal, on Thursday 30th November, is a serious look at the arguments for and against a plant-based diet. The speaker, Jayne Buxton, poses the question, “What if removing animal foods from our diet was a serious threat to human health, and a…

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Annie, Bristol Hippodrome

ONE of the criticisms leveled at the musical Annie is that it is too sweet and sentimental, and to an extent that is probably true, which only goes to prove how far this feelgood musical adaptation of the adventures of Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip that was printed in American newspapers from 1924 to…

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Quiz, Bath Theatre Royal

AS a nation, we love quizzes – look how many people enjoy weekly or monthly pub contests! And the television block-buster Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (which ran from 1998 to 2014) was the biggest quiz of them all, with the biggest prize. It was fun to watch, amusing to see if you could…

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Bath Mozartfest 2023

IN the days before genetic modification and new methods of long-term storage robbed us of the pleasure of enjoying fruit and vegetables at a specific time of year, as they came into season, you looked forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of the first English tomatoes, fresh peas, kidney and broads beans. Fortunately those…

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Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger, live music from Minima, Take Art

MINIMA – Mick Frangou, Greg Hall, Alex Hogg and Andy Taylor – made their Take Art debut providing original live music for a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film The Lodger – A Story of the London Fog at Caryford Hall. The Bristol-based quartet plays instruments including cello, double bass, regular and baritone guitars,…

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Therese, Arts University Bournemouth

EMILE Zola’s 1868 novel Therese Raquin scandalised readers at the time, with its depiction of adultery and murder. Now Fiona Ross has adapted the story, and directs her own version with performing arts students from AUB, setting the action in immediately post-war Paris, and in the land of the wicked dead. Played without an interval,…

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A dark mystery from the Scandinavian forests

ANCIENT Scandinavian forests are mysterious places full of voices and sounds from the past – the folklore of these vast dark woods provides the atmospheric background for Mara, a storytelling tour-de-force by Dominic Kelly, who comes to Dorset with Artreach, at Milborne St Andrew on Saturday 25th November and Sandford Orcas on Sunday 26th, both…

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