ARTS University Bournemouth’s drama courses have produced some exceptional work in recent months, testing the students with inventive double-casting and improvisational adaptations, as well as more conventional work. Their colleagues on the university’s costume and stage design courses have worked closely with the varied productions to hone their skills for careers in the theatre. The…
MUSICIAN, historian, teacher and composer Louise Jordan, a regular on the Artsreach circuit, is entertaining and educating fans across Dorset with her new show, No Petticoats Here. It all started when she asked her husband where he would like to go for a richly-deserved short holiday after a summer of touring in 2014. “The Somme”…
THE generation born between the two world wars was known for resilience and coping, not talking about “feelings” and certainly not digging into a troublesome past. It’s very different from our times, when everyone is encouraged to bring emotions and experiences out into the open and “share” them with as many people as possible. Add…
IT’S 1912, and as Scott and Amundsen begin their race across Antarctica, the hapless explorer, Captain Reginald Scottt (yes – with three t’s and each one impeccably pronounced!) has accidentally landed on the wrong side of the continent. As Scottt and his motley band set up base camp, a meteor crashes nearby. Deciding to investigate,…
THIS must be the fourth or maybe even fifth time that I have heard Ninebarrow in concert and they just seem to get better and better. Take Art together with Bruton Festival of Arts brought Dorset’s multi-award-winning duo to Bruton’s Unionist Club as part of their latest national tour. It would appear to be…
REPUTATION, reputation, reputation … Cassio’s drunken rambling to Iago pinpoints a key theme of Othello, and one which was well brought out in Gillingham School’s powerful production of Shakespeare’s most difficult tragedy. It is so difficult because we want to admire and respect its “hero” – in a way we don’t with, say, Macbeth, who…
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 Lyatoshinsky: Symphony No. 3 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits conductor Sunwook Kim piano CONCERT-GOERS at Poole’s Lighthouse last night were greeted by the sight of a brand-new Steinway Model D grand piano centre stage wearing a fetching bright red bow which had been made by students at…
THE past few months have brought the plight of women in the entertainment industry to public attention, from the undue influence exercised by powerful casting producers and directors to the lack of work for women “of a certain age.” The Midlands-based Anonymous is a Woman theatre company, set up by actors Leila Sykes and Bips…
ON Saturday at the Nadder Hall the audience included a little boy attending (with some trepidation) his first pantomime, and a pensioner to whose eyes the story brought a tear … “It’s the first time I’ve been to a pantomime in more than 50 years, and this was the first one I saw,” she said. The…
SIMON Dormandy’s adaptation of EM Forster’s A Passage to India is informed by his father’s experiences of the sub-continent, and the combination of mysticism and surreptitious violence are perfectly suited to Dormandy’s physical theatre style. In a simple8 and Royal and Derngate, Northampton co-production, this swirling, intense and colourful version distils the essence of the…