THE next play on stage at the Ashley Road Studio Theatre in Salisbury is an English version of Nikolai Gogol’s classic The Government Inspector, from 13th to 18th October. The adaptation, by Philip Goulding, is sub-titled A Little Local Difficulty, and will be directed by the writer’s brother George, a Studio stalwart. The action of…
GREAT Expectations is a book that you could say lives up to its title – an epic story of damaged lives and shattered illusions. Despite its scale it lends itself to the intimacy of theatre as the audience will discover when Shaftesbury Arts Centre’s music and drama group stages the story, from 22nd to 25th…
THERE is precious little good that came out of 9/11 – but one heart-warming, true story from those tragic, desperate days was turned into a great musical, Come From Away, which has been chosen by Yeovil Amateur Operatic Society for its autumn 2025 show, from 14th to 18th October at the Westlands entertainment centre. One…
SOMERSET Opera has joined with Valley of the Rocks-based Pleasure Dome Theatre to create a Handelian delight for audiences this Autumn. Between 30th August and 25th October, they will tour a reworking of Handel’s classic 1724 Giulio Cesare, this time set in the villages and towns of Somerset where the protagonists are Cesare, chairman of…
IF you fancy taking part in a pantomime based on one of the best-known and loved of all fantasy stories, make a note of Monday 15th September, the day when Shaftesbury Arts Centre’s music and drama group is holding an interest evening for the 2026 pantomime, Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll’s unique and timeless classic…
YEOVIL’S Swan Theatre welcomes a newcomer next week, when Amy McIntosh joins the talented company to play the role of Aurora (Rory to her friends) in Tatty Hennessy’s play A Hundred Words for Snow. Mark Payne directs the play, which had its premiere in London in 2018, and Amy is known to Yeovil audiences for…
WHILE the rest of the world was reeling and retreating in shock at the images of planes crashing into the Twin Tours and the Pentagon, the residents of Gander in Newfoundland had little time for horrified reflection. Planes from all round the world who were in US airspace were diverted to the town airport, and…
THE clock at Strode Theatre will be turning the clock back almost 70 years next week, when the Street Theatre Company brings Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood’s play 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche to the region for the first time. Set in New York State in 1956, The Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters…
TAUNTON Thespians head out on the road on Tuesday 15th July for their summer tour, this year taking William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights’ Dream to ten venues around Somerset. Directed by Bob Corwin, the big-cast company will tell the ever-popular story of capricious young lovers and their dictatorial parents, a group of local workmen putting…
SHAFTESBURY Arts Centre will be bursting with the sounds of Rodgers and Hammerstein as audiences are transported to the Austrian Alps in the febrile days before the outbreak of World War II and the immortal songs of The Sound of Music. The centre’s Music and Drama Group has chosen the perennially popular musical for its…