EIGHT years ago the south west’s Great Dame, Steve Bennett, popped out of the Northcott Theatre at Exeter University (where he had held sway in his petticoats for 15 years) to do a bit of shopping. Well, you know what these women are! But, with a basket full of new comic goodies, he’s back in…
CAMBRIDGE audiences saw a new Beauty and the Beast last Christmas, and the production was so good that the company and the co-producers decided to take it out again. So this year the show is at the Tobacco Factory in Bedminster, Bristol, bringing inspired storytelling, atmospheric original music, broad comedy, pathos and a moral message…
FESTIVE family shows can come in all sorts of styles, but they really have only one essential – to entertain young audiences. And on that basis, the 2017/188 collaboration between Bumblefly and Forest Forge is a resounding triumph. Its first matinee, in a packed Greyfriars in Ringwood, had the tinies on cushions in the front…
IT is a truth universally acknowledged … One of the most famous opening lines in literature sets the tone for Jane Austen’s best loved and most frequently adapted novel, Pride and Prejudice. In a couple of lines of elegant, witty prose, Austen captures her themes of young men with money and time on their hands…
Mozart Piano Concerto No 23 in A Bruckner Symphony No. 8 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Conductor Kirill Karabits Piano Robert Levin MUSIC certainly keeps you young! I had a double-take when checking the biography of 70-year-old American pianist Robert Levin, who from his platform manner I had assumed to be a sprightly 50-something. …
STEELEYE Span has been the fulcrum of traditional folk rock for decades, and a new line up (again with Maddy Prior at its heart) is ploughing a new furrow for the band. Out on tour playing the first ever Steeleye album, Hark the Village Wait!, in its entirety as well as a second half selection…
THE festive season is all around us, with pantomimes, Christmas lights and carols coming from every speaker – but the mood is more bleak midwinter than merry Christmas at the Ustinov studio where American playwright Will Eno’s award-winning play follows Daniel Kehlmann’s disturbing Christmas Eve. Eno describes the play as a comedy and it certainly…
MAYBE the rotund and irreverent Bristol-based actor Howard Coggins is not EXACTLY how you picture God the Father. Maybe Stu McLaughlin is not your perfect image of the Archangel Gabriel. But suspend your disbelief and set off for Nazareth and Bethlehem in the company of Living Spit, to enjoy the familiar Christmas story in a…
I FIRST saw this show at the Edinburgh Fringe on its second visit there in the mid-90s, after its international life had started with a stint at the Hackney Empire, gradually entrancing audiences and eventually winning an Olivier Award. It is hard to describe the emotion and effect of the show itself, but mention it…
THE Nuffield Theatre has done it again. They are renowned for the quality of their Christmas shows, and always manage to offer something that appeals to adults as much as children. This year it is the story of young Victorian foundling Hetty Feather as she finds her way through her early life, mainly at the…