SHOW of Strength, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, is “making an exhibition of itself,” with 40 years of posters, fliers, photos, films, recordings, programmes and more – and possibly a performance or two – in The Pit at Totterdown from 17th to 19th April. The company started in 1986 with Double Vision, aboard MV…
IT hardly seems more than a month since the 2025-26 pantomime season ended, and already theatres around the country are looking forward to the 2026/2027 season. This early press release will be good news for fans of the festive show at England’s prettiest theatre, Bat Theatre Royal. Nick Wilton will be back as the Dame…
BATH Comedy Festival runs until Sunday 19th April and its lineup has included more than 100 shows, featuring well over 300 performances, with big names at Bath Forum including Dead Ringers, Paul Merton and Suki Webster, Harry Enfield and Troy Hawke. The festival also brings a host of acts to its intimate upstairs room at…
ARTSREACH, Dorset’s rural touring arts charity, has been selected to be part of this year’s Big Give: Arts for Impact campaign. From midday on Tuesday 17th March to midday on Tuesday 24th, every pound donated to Artsreach through the Big Give platform will be doubled – meaning twice the support for the charity’s work across…
IT is not unusual for directors to take liberties with the setting, and costuming, of what is arguably Shakespeare’s most endearing and popular comedy. After nearly three centuries of turning the actors out in traditional Athenian costumes, and placing them in the Forest for most of the production, Harley Granville-Barker swept all that away in…
CELLIST Adrian Brendel, now the director of Bath’s Mozart and Bach festivals, comes to the Farrington Hall at Port Regis near Shaftesbury on Saturday 14th March to perform works by Beethoven, Faure and Prokofiev. He will be joined by pianist Alasdair Beatson, who has stepped in following the withdrawal of Viv McLean, as advertised. The…
SIMON Stephens’ play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time has been hailed as the most popular murder mystery of the 21st century. Now the play comes to Strode Theatre in Street in a production by Street Theatre, from 18th to 21st March. Based on Mark Haddon’s novel of the same name, it’s…
ACTOR and writer David Haig wrote his third play, Pressure, in 2014 for Chichester Festival Theatre. It has its Somerset premiere from 16th to 21st March at Yeovil’s Swan Theatre, in a production directed by Mark Payne. The date is June 1944. The Allied forces are poised for D-Day, and the lives of 350,000 Allied…
AN acclaimed solo drama, produced by Margie Barbour, former director of the Marine at Lyme Regis, comes to the theatre on 19th March with two performances of Every Brilliant Thing, at 1.30pm and 7.30. Every Brilliant Thing was a sell-out at Bridport last year and a success in London, with a cast on rotation that…
DORSET writer and actor Ed Viney follows his successful play Pot Licker with a new black comedy, Stolen Ram, coming to Southampton and Shaftesbury on 26th and 27th March. Working in association with Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre and Dorchester Arts, the Ed Viney company has created a sharp, fast-moving play that blends biting humour, suspense…