THE unfolding drama of the Scottish Play is the perfect vehicle for dance, as packed Merlin audiences discovered in Frome this week. The occasion – heralded as the arts event of the week in the national press – was the opening of Mark Bruce’s new dance theatre piece, Macbeth, based on the familiar Shakespearean story…
THE decision to opt for a play instead of a pantomime this year has brought one of the very best things I have ever seen to the Shaftesbury Arts Centre stage. Director Rosie King chose American playwright Ken Ludwig’s multi-layered, literate and darky exciting version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, often performed as a two…
TIME-travelling magicians and all round spiffing chaps Rhys Morgan and Robert West brought a magical extravaganza to Salisbury last night with a truly amazing show – as mind boggling as it was delightful. Celebrating their tenth year as a duo of deception, the intimacy of the Salberg Studio was the perfect venue for their brand…
THE versatile Swan Theatre company in Yeovil took a step into the unknown for their first show of 2018 – the first play written by local stalwart am dram soc member Adrian Harding, directed by fledgling director Judith Baker, with new members making their stage debuts. And it is a huge success. Whistleblower is set…
IN the first few days of 2014 , the eyes of the world focussed on North Somerset, where a number of remote villages were being engulfed by the rising water from the River Parrett and its tributaries and the courses that feed and underlie the Levels. Photographs and news footage of the floods brought aid…
IN 1977, folk singer Pete Bellamy, then a member of The Young Tradition, composed a cycle of folk ballads based on a true story of two petty criminals transported from Norwich Gaol to Botany Bay. It became The Transports, heralded as the first folk opera (presumably leaving The Beggar’s Opera aside) and the recording was and…
DO you remember the film The Vikings, starring a hyper-butch Kirk Douglas as the Viking leader and the gorgeous Tony Curtis as the scantily clad hero? OK, you’re showing your age – but you will remember the dramatic finale as Kirk Douglas’s character is sent off to the Norse after-life in traditional style, in a…
WHAT would you do if you were given a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease? Be frightened … depressed … angry? Actress Sue Wylie was all of these – but after meeting an unusual young man who released his tensions with free-running, she turned her diagnosis into a play and now a film which is by turns…
WHAT a treat to see the person that Andrew Lloyd Webber chose to help workshop the material for this show over 25 years ago finally back in the leading role. It may have taken a few years for Ria Jones to play the part of Norma Desmond, but after showing just how good she was…
HOW do you refresh one of the best-known and oldest of all pantomime stories while still sticking closely to the traditional tale? Matthew Maisey, back once again as the writer and director of Street’s panto at Strode Theatre, has plenty of ace ideas up his sleeve. For the audience at the first performance, one of…