HENRY James’ novel The Turn of the Screw has provided chilling inspiration for composers, filmmakers and playwrights since its publication in 1898. It plays on unnamed fears of the unknown, and as such can be “authentically” adapted to fit the preoccupations of any time. At Pavilion Dance, performing arts students from Arts University Bournemouth brought…
DECLAN Donellan and Nick Ormerod’s adaptatin of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations for Cheek by Jowl was first seen in 2005, and praised as an ensemble re-telling of the familiar story. Since then the writer’s fans have seen Dickensian, the clever reworking of various strands and characters from (and preceding) many Dickens stories into one sprawling…
“HOW lovely that it was introduced by the placenta” is not the quotation I was expecting to be uppermost in my mind as I drove home from such a wonderful, imaginative, fulfilling, beautifully crafted production of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays in one of England’s finest buildings, but that was what I overheard in…
SISTER Act, the musical show based on the Whoopi Goldberg film, depends on a STUPENDOUS central performance … and that’s what it gets from Natasha Green at Street. It’s a feel-good story, and even if you aren’t a fan of 70s disco soul and gospel, the G&SMCS company do it with such energy that their…
IN this anniversary year of Shakespearean productions, many pushing the boundaries of accepted interpretation, Dave Hollis was determined that Shaftesbury Arts Centre shouldn’t miss out. His production of The Comedy of Errors, on stage in Bell Street until 16th April, sets the early play in a circus ring, beautifully but incongruously opening with a Japanese song…
JOHN Foster’s gripping play Shot at Dawn tells the story of two soldiers from the Dorchester Regiment, one an officer, the other a private, on trial for cowardice during the First World War. Although the characters themselves are the products of the playwright’s imagination, what they had to say was real enough, the actual text,…
WHEN Woody Guthrie wrote what would become one of his best-known songs, “This Land Is Your Land,”, he was protesting against the jingoistic patriotism of the song “God Blessed America” and supporting the rights of ordinary people to have access to the beauties and riches of the country. Sian Owen’s new play literally digs deeper…
A BIG wedding was arranged in Milborne Port this week, with the contractual exchanges performed outside the Guildhall and the reception in the grounds of Ven House. But when the aristocratic guards officer of a groom decided to unleash his socialist ideas of equality on the love lives of the villagers, by means of a…
STEVE Gooch’s play Female Transport had its first performances in 1974, predating Timberlake Wertenbaker’s (far superior and better known) play Our Country’s Good by 14 years. It is the Gooch play that Tim Greathead has chosen for the April production at Studio Theatre’s Ashley Road base. Set on board the former warship HMS Juliana in…
RICHARD Bean’s One Man Two Guvnors, a hilarious musical updating of Goldoni’s farce A Servant to Two Masters, is one of the great comedy hits of the 21st century. And Merriman Productions, the first amateur company to acquire the performance rights in Somerset, are doing it proud at Somervale School in Midsomer Norton. Like all…