WHEN David Mamet’s play Oleanna first appeared back in 1992, 14 years before the “Me Too” movement saw the light of social media day, it was so divisively controversial that it was even blamed for the break-up of marriages. Interestingly, as the current Lucy Bailey production in Bath proves, it has lost none of its…
Yeovil Octagon until 3rd January FOR anyone who is interested in live performance, pantomime (whether you like it or not) is synonymous with Christmas, and when theatres around the country went dark for even longer than the first lockdown, received grants from the government, reopened and then were closed again, it seemed as though…
THE worldwide effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are incalculable, and perhaps the sector worst affected in the UK is the live entertainment industry. Closed two weeks before the start of the first lockdown, and remaining closed when other businesses opened, the rules left managements scuttling for solutions to make their communal, intimate and essentially social…
AUDIENCES at Iford Opera in 2018 arrived to find parts of the Manor gardens cordoned off and obvious signs of film crews in the narrow lanes, but curiosity was met with stony, and contractual, silence. Iford Manor owners, staff and all those involved with the festival were sworn to secrecy, and it was only later…
RURAL media charity Windrose Trust has a new website – windroseruralmedia.org – where you can view old film, listen to audio and order DVDs. All Windrose’s projects were cancelled or postponed because of the pandemic, but a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund has enabled the charity, which was set up in 1984 under…
SEVEN months ago, en route to Bath Theatre Royal to review Band of Gold and New Old Friends, we were telephoned with the news that the theatre had closed until further notice following government instructions. What an exciting relief to be back, albeit masked and distanced, in the beautiful theatre for the first of three…
WHAT more apt venue for cycling theatricals The Handlebards than the home of Moulton Cycles in Bradford-on-Avon? And what lovelier setting to watch a hilarious three-wheeled version of Romeo and Juliet on the night before the imposition of Boris’s latest three-word slogan, the Rule of Six? The company usually tours in two groups, boys and…
SAMUEL Beckett, according to the Amateur Players of Sherborne programme, wrote “Art has nothing to do with clarity, does not dabble in the clear and does not make clear,” … and there’s me thinking that the present government doesn’t understand The Arts. Sherborne’s open air production of Beckett’s masterpiece was the result of a happenstance…
WITH the ten minutes notice in which our leaders specialise, the intrepid alfresco theatre companies of England were told that they could go ahead with outdoor performances. Illyria was one of the first four to take up the challenge, creating a Covid-secure bubble in which to tour a delightful, satirical, hilarious three-person retelling of Kenneth…
WHAT more perfect way to celebrate a return to live performance than a concert in the beautiful gardens of Springhead at Fontmell Magna – and that’s how conductor and Dorset farmer John Eliot Gardiner reconnected his singers and musicians with their audience. Testing Springhead’s Covid arrangements, an invited audience was led to separated blocks of…