The Play’s the Thing

Creative partnership for students and opera charity

WHEN audiences gather for Hurn Court Opera’s La Traviata on 16th April at Christchurch Regent Centre, 18th at the Coade Hall at Bryanston School and 20th at Winchester Theatre Royal, they will see striking and original costumes designed by students at Arts University Bournemouth. The new creative partnership between the opera company, a Dorset-based arts…

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Reimagining Jekyll and Hyde

ROBERT Louis Stevenson spent some years living in Westbourne, then an affluent suburb of Bournemouth, and it was here that he wrote the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. So it is appropriate for the town’s Palace Court Theatre to be the venue for a striking reimagining of this famous thriller,…

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Forty years of Strength on show

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…

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Life-affirming play at the Marine

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…

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School comedy with a black heart

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…

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The cyclops and the clown

“IF Tarantino was to write a play, this would be it,” says Jason Durr, star of the new comedy thriller Murder at Midnight, which comes to Salisbury Playhouse from Monday 9th to Saturday 14th March, and Bath Theatre Royal from 16th to 21st. Written by Torben Betts, it is a follow-up to his previous play…

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The grand old duke …

WELSH storyteller Shon Dale-Jones comes to Portland’s Royal Manor Theatre on Thursday 12th March with his Edinburgh Fringe First award-winning show, The Duke, for the first of three dates with Artsreach. He will also be telling the tragi-comic tale of a family heirloom at West Stafford village hall on Friday 13th and Burton Bradstock hall…

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Hit musical at Bath

IF you have seen the film Operation Mincemeat, you will know it is an improbable, utterly British story that – amazingly – is true … an account of the ridiculously daring stunt that helped to turn the course of the Second World War. Turned into a hit musical, Operation Mincemeat – The Musical, is on…

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New musical honours first Black British officer

A NEW musical based on the life of Walter Tull, a pioneering black footballer and army officer, has several local dates, continuing the Redgrave Theatre at Bristol on 10th March, Poole Lighthouse on 11th March and Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on 12th March, as part of a national tour. Commissioned by Show Racism…

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Variety is the spice …

FARNHAM Maltings, much-loved on rural touring circuits, returns to Dorset and Devon with a new play, touring the region until 22nd March. All For Your Delight is a celebration of the world of variety, with a dazzling mix of comedy, songs and games – plus some spectacular roller skating! The show is with Devon’s Villages…

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