WELSH National Opera’s A Night at the Opera should not be confused with the Marx Brothers’ first film, made in 1935, when they left Paramount Pictures to join the always high production value studio of MGM. But WNO’s show has one major feature in common with the Marx Brothers film – it sets out to…
ALMOST 25 years on, it is still impossible to avoid a tearful gasp at the thought of the events of 11th September 2001, when almost 3,000 people were killed in four co-ordinated attacks on the USA by Islamist terrorists. But in a resilient world, inevitably there were good outcomes for the lucky few, and among…
some will always book when the cast includes a star not for the content RALPH Fiennes brings his 2025 Bath Summer Season to a close with Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s commissioned play Small Hotel, and, like the rest of the productions of the season, it has evoked vehemently differing responses. The intention was always to present two…
ANNE-Marie Casey’s vivid, energetic and passionate adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic story Little Women comes to Salisbury for the first showings of the second leg of its 2025 tour, with a largely new cast and all the atmosphere and delight of its Pitlochry debut back in 2022. A judging colleague of mine says nothing…
RUSSIAN playwright Nikolai Gogol perfectly captured the pomposity, predilection for back-handers, flirtatious peccadillos and general self-aggrandisement that is universally noted in local (and national) government in his 1836 play The Government Inspector. The reality of political corruption is as timeless as it is international. There have been many adaptations of the original (just called Inspector…
OPERA Project, the company that first appeared in the South West in 1996 at the Iford Festival, where 14 productions were staged over the next eight years, moved to Bedminster’s Tobacco Factory in 2003 and has been performing in the former cigar packing factory sporadically ever since. The Iford productions saw student friends Jonathan Lyness…
NOEL Coward’s timeless comedy Blithe Spirit was just the thing war-ravaged Londoners needed in 1941, and it might just provide the lift we need in these crazy, frightening days 84 years later. Anthony Banks’ new production is played out on a stylish set designed by Terry Parsons, an opulent Art Deco drawing room with its…
DORSET’s much-loved folk duo Ninebarrow are releasing a new album at the beginning of October, a celebration not only of the vocal harmonies of the two musicians but also of the joy of choirs singing together. The Hour of the Blackbird marks a departure for Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere, who have worked with two…
PATRONS. poets, pupils, printers, performers, publishers … pirates! The roll call of women who contributed to the development and distribution of music from the Renaissance through to the Enlightenment is nothing if not surprising! The multi-instrumental female quartet Sounds Historical came to the Medieval Hall in Salisbury Cathedral Close on the opening night of the…
FOR a TV series that lasted only two series – 64 episodes between 1964 and 1966 – The Addams Family has remarkable longevity. Helped by continual showings on late night TV and four films featuring the characters, it was almost inevitable that someone (Andrew Lippa) would add music and, adapt (Marchal; Brickman and Rick Elice)…