THE students at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School are ending the year with a colourful flourish at the Redgrave Theatre, with a new adaptation of the books of Lewis Carroll by Philip Monks. It all starts with a sepia image of Carroll (aka the Rev Charles Dodgson) and a group of friends posed in a…
MY first awareness of Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, better known, in the same way as other early 20th Century writers HG, AA and TS, by his initials, PG, was through a strangely funny programme on BBC1 in the early 1970s called Wodehouse Playhouse, which I was encouraged to watch because it starred two people from…
WHEN the Hammond brothers, Henry and Robert, set off on their bikes around the lanes of West Dorset in 1905 to 1907, gathering traditional songs and carols from people who were already old, they captured many of the tunes and words that Thomas Hardy knew as a boy. They had long been overtaken by the…
BUFFALO Gals founder and fiddler extraordinaire Kate Lissauer has recently discovered the silent films of Frank Borzage, made almost a century ago. She, with John Whelan and Jason Titley, have worked on three of the earliest short silents by the man who directed 100 films and won two Oscars, composing new music and authentic songs…
Orchestral players take centre stage at The Lighthouse Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Kirill Karabits: Conductor Sunwook Kim: Piano Amyn Merchant: Violin Jesper Svedberg: Cello MAHLER: Blumine BEETHOVEN: Triple Concerto SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 5 WITH no virtuoso solo concerto in the programme, the focus in this packed Lighthouse concert was on the orchestra, with several principals…
ONLY connect, said E M Forster, quoted by Frank in Willy Russell’s Educating Rita: only connect, the motto written on Forster’s monument in Stevenage, and the two words which sum up not only much of Forster’s output, and Rita’s attempt at education, but also every tiny piece of the magical, mystical, deep, yet seemingly simple,…
ONCE we have been born, the one certainty remaining in this confused and confusing world is that we will die. We can no longer depend on real estate maintaining its value, jobs for life for lawyers, bankers and doctors or the sunshine in summer, but we ARE going to die. Not many of us wait…
ARTHUR Miller’s All My Sons is regarded as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, yet it is performed rarely, requiring a level of emotional and intellectual concentration from its audience that is unusual in these 90-minutes-and-off-to-the-bar days. Set in the back yard of a house in a well-to-do neighbourhood of an American…
THIS production by Warminster’s Masqueraders was back by popular demand after a successful sell-out production on the Athenaeum stage earlier this year. That demand was certainly evident as this vibrant show, which really delivers what the title promises, once again played to full houses. It is set in a women’s prison, and the stark set…
DVORÁK: Symphonic Variations DVORÁK: Violin Concerto SIBELIUS: Scene with Cranes SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5 THE 34-old-year Scottish conductor Rory Macdonald and the 29-year-old Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma are well past the stage when they could be called ‘promising’: both are in the thick of highly-successful careers. But the youthful zest that both bring to their…