ANDY Ford is one of Bristol’s local heroes: so he is the obvious choice to host an evening of entertainment at the Hippodrome, echoing those other famous Sunday Nights in London’s West End, which helped launch ITV in the mid 1950s and have been revived many time right up to the present, always hosted by…
COINCIDENTALLY, I had just finished reading a glowing review in The Times of the musical Showboat, which has been revived at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, when the opportunity to see Call Mr. Robeson arose. Showboat features such timeless songs as Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man of Mine and Bill as well as Ol’ Man…
THE cast of the Glastonbury and Street Musical Comedy Society Peter Pan are flying high over the post Christmas lethargy to bring real fun and excitement to audiences at Strode Theatre. Who’d have thought a few years ago that the college campus theatre could have produced a show with not one flying actor but four,…
THE Christmas revue show at Salisbury Playhouse’s Salberg Studio is an eagerly anticipated tradition, and this year the subject is money. With the increasing commercialisation of Christmas and the concentration on ever more expensive presents, it’s an apposite time to think about the spondulicks, and that’s just what director Gareth Machin and his quartet of…
THE Russian fairy story of The Snow Maiden has been given a make-over by Butterfly Psyche, and the results are on the stage at the Rondo in Bath until Sunday 20th December. Set in the frozen north, it all starts as the spirits of the ancestors get together to talk about old times and tell…
ANGEL Exit is flying high this festive season with its first ever show for children, on in Poole until Christmas Eve. The Dorset-based theatre company that brought Moonfleet, The Secret Garden and The Ballad of Martha Brown to audiences across the region, has devised a delightful tale for the under eight age range and their…
FOREST Forge has built up a loyal and expectant audience around the region for its annual Christmas touring shows, and this year they are enjoying something a bit different. Dom Phillips, who has been tour manager and technician for many years, has been hiding his light under a bushel – and this year it’s time…
THERE has never been a more fun beanstalk to climb than that on stage at Bath’s Theatre Royal this Christmas. The show is full of energy and colour, song and dance, incorporating all the vital elements of a traditional pantomime but at the same time mixing in enough topical and local jokes and and recent…
DENISE Deegan’s pastiche of life in a private girls school in the 1920s has been a smash hit ever since it opened at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton in 1983, and this year it has hardly been off the stage in our region. Dorset’s fourth production of the year, at the Shelley Theatre in Boscombe,…
THERE’S lots of gun toting yee-haas in Lucy Rivers’ Little Sure Shot, back at the egg at Bath Theatre Royal and on stage until Sunday 10th January. The action-packed story is beautifully told, weaving information about the lives of the Pioneers into songs, adventures and the true story of Annie Oakley, sharp-shooter of the old…