IN these days when “soshul meejah” rules many lives and the importance of celebrity seems to depend more and more on appearance, Bec Applebee’s clever take on the story of Cinderella is a timely tale. Ella has been brought up on the farm by her devoted parents and a chicken for a chum. When her…
IT’S an incredible 11 years since Yeovil Youth Theatre burst onto the scene with an unforgettable production of Les Miserables at The Gateway, and during the intervening years the company has introduced many young performers in a challenging variety of roles. This year’s show, at the Octagon Theatre last week, was Annie, a perennial favourite…
FRANCE is currently in the news for such terrible reasons that it is a welcome pleasure to be reminded that for most of us French culture is synonymous with sharp intelligence, wit, style and romance. French drama is particularly renowned for its sparkling romantic comedies, often satirical, frequently sexy. From Moliere via Marivaux to Feydeau,…
AGATHA Christie’s 1958 play The Unexpected Guest is typically densely plotted and full of red herrings, but it hasn’t stood the test of time as well as some of her other works. It depends, like all murder mysteries, on perfect timing, and that is impossible to achieve if principal members of the cast are relying…
THREE F words go automatically together, French, Farce and Feydeau, and that’s the combination which audiences at the Ustinov Studio at Bath’s Theatre Royal can enjoy until 19th December. Director Laurence Boswell has chosen Kenneth McLeish’s clever translation of the 1892 play Monsieur Chasse!, renamed The One That Got Away, for the second of his…
IMAGINE entering the doors of Downton Abbey, seeing the familiar faces of the family and the staff in the great hall, and then sitting down to watch them enacting a Victorian mystery by Wilkie Collins. That’s the conceit of television screenwriter Nick Warburton’s version of The Moonstone (his first adaptation) chosen by Taunton Thespians to…
BRISTOL fielded more banjo players than any other venue in the UK on Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn’s tour – 23 of them in all. And a treat they had on Sunday, as the husband-and-wife duo played a blistering set which ranged from Bela (named for Bartok) playing Bach to Abby clogging her way through…
OUR political masters and those who are obsessed with the European question think the in-out vote on EU membership is the most important issue facing us. For others, the threat posed by climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity, however much climate change deniers want to ignore it. It is a threat to the…
Prokofiev: Sinfonietta Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 Haydn: Symphony No. 104 ‘London’ Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits: Conductor Stephen Isserlis: Cello CELLIST Steven Isserlis is a regular soloist with the BSO. He has enormous charisma and presence, and an enthusiastic full house saw him give an intense and dramatic performance…
MICHAEL Frayn’s farce, Noises Off, is the perfect example of just how hard it is to bring off a show which keeps the audience in fits of laughter by a constant barrage of mistaken identity, doors opening and closing, trousers dropping and bizarre plotting. It is the story of Otstar Productions’ production of Robin Housemonger’s…