The Play’s the Thing

A commotion in the West

THE middle of the 16th century was a turbulent time – a fevered period in the bloody history of the Reformation in England. A new play, which gets its world premiere at Exeter Northcott Theatre on Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd October, looks at the dramatic events in Devon in February 1547, soon after the…

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A legendary Dame at Bath

DAME Sian Phillips comes to Bath Theatre Royal to star in one of Terence Rattigan’s one-act masterpieces, Table Number Seven, from Thursday 24th October to Saturday 2nd November. The 91 year old actress will also take part in an on-stage conversation with director Richard Digby-Day, at Bath’s Ustinov Studio, on Sunday 27th. Her co-star in…

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Watching over the past

OLIVIER Award-winning theatre company Papatango comes to Dorset with a new version of Robert Wentall’s classic ghost story, The Watch House, ending its run at the Barnfield Theatre, Exeter on 5th and 6th November. “There’s a legend about the Watch House. Scrape beneath the whitewash and you’ll find terror. You’ll find him.” Once a coastguard…

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New play at Dorchester

A WELSH theatre company makes its debut with Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Tuesday 22nd October. Decommissioned is the first play from Wise Ram Theatre, written by co-director playwright Molly Ann Sweeney. Wise Ram Theatre is a new neurodiverse theatre company, which aims to make theatre about the climate crisis. “Cariad, I care…

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Once upon a time …

THE Bristol-based theatre company Roustabout Theatre is touring an imaginative new show for children, Little Red Riding Could, a playful and mischievous retelling of the original fairytale, which is coming to Front Room, Weston-Super-Mare on 26th October,  The Theatre Shop, Clevedon on 27th and 1st November at Portsmouth Guildhall Studio ending the tour at Bridport…

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War Horse returns

THE brilliant and award-winning National Theatre production of War Horse, adapted from Michael Morporgo’s novel, was a massive hit at the National, in the West End, on Broadway and around the world. Now a new production of this beautiful and deeply moving story is on a national tour, on at Plymouth Theatre Royal until 7th…

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Room 13, Barn Theatre, Cirencester

IF you like chills, thrills and ghost tales, the new play at Cirencester’s Barn Theatre will really hit the spot. Room 13, by Duncan Abel and Rachel Wagstaff, is inspired by the famous ghost stories of MR James and is definitely proving a hit with audiences in the run-up to Hallowe’en. The production runs to…

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A tale of food and typhoid

LIVING Spit’s autumn recipe is on its way to a theatre near you. Mary Mallon is an Irish immigrant, an amiable host … and a killer? A talented cook in New York City in 1906 takes a job preparing delicious meals for yet another high society family, and yet again they begin to fall ill…

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Gothic classic at Bath

THE world premiere of a new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic gothic novel, Dracula, comes to Bath Theatre Royal from Tuesday 8th to Saturday 12th October. Blackeyed Theatre’s production marks the centenary of the first staging of the late Victorian vampire story that has inspired so many different interpretations, from contemporary dance to Hammer horror…

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Rebus on stage at Bath

FANS of Ian Rankin’s great creation, John Rebus, can meet the latest iteration of the complex, flawed by charismatic Edinburgh detective in Rebus: A Game Called Malice, a new story by Rankin and Simon Reade, which comes to Bath Theatre Royal from Monday 30th September to Saturday 5th October, starring Gray O’Brien in the title…

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