THE final weekend of the very successful 2015 Bath International Music Festival started in style with the concert by Stile Antico in the beautiful Abbey Church. The 12 members of the ensemble, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, perform without a conductor. They have built up an international reputation for the freshness and accomplishment of…
ALL too often we think of silent film as a vehicle for slapstick – and certainly some of the greatest slapstick performances are on the silver screen, where soulful expressions, doleful eyes and astonished gasps at the latest mess they have got into provide plenty of laughs for the audience. But those same characterists of…
SANDY Wilson’s musical confection The Boy Friend opened in London in 1954, and has been a staple ever since. Its Wikipedia entry somewhat dismissively says: “Its relatively small cast and low cost of production makes it a continuing popular choice for amateur and student groups.” That might be true, but judging from the simply sensational…
TWENTY one years after the Coen Brothers’ film The Hudsucker Proxy hit the big screen, it has been adapted for the stage, starting at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, in a joint production with Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse and Complicite. It is the first time that a Coen Brothers films has been staged, and designer…
IT’S 50 years since American singer and songwriter Tom Paxton first came to the UK. He came sporting a collection of his own songs including one he had written as an engagement present for his then new wife, Midge. It was My Lady’s A Wild Flying Dove, and it has remained one of his and…
JEAN Anouilh’s satirical play Invitation to the Castle was first performed in France in 1947, and adapted three years later by Christopher Fry for a Peter Brook production in London. For many years it was a favourite with touring rep companies and amateur dramatic societies, but now it is something of a rarity. The extraordinarily…
OK is the postal abbreviation for the American state of Oklahoma, and the beginning of a few of the lines of the title song of this Rogers and Hammerstein musical, staple of amateur companies the world over and regularly revived by professionals, including Trevor Nunn’s National Theatre production of the late 1990s, featuring Maureen Lipman…
DORSET’s Ridgeway Singers and Band with Tim Laycock and Phil Humphries joined the celebrations of two major anniversaries in glorious spring sunshine at Kimmeridge Bay. The singers sang traditional songs of the sea from the West Country as part of the Landmark Trust’s 50th anniversary golden weekend and this year’s 25th anniversary of Artreach, Dorset’s…
FOLIO Theatre is a new company set up last year to connect theatre in London and the West Country and to create plays set in the region. Its first full length play Unearthed, written by Alys Metcalf and currently on tour, is set in the Quantocks. It tells the story of an estranged brother and…
EVERY Spring the newest batch of students at the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School introduce themselves to the public with a touring show, and it has built up an eager following among audiences across the south west. This year those audiences are in for a treat and a half. Paul Clarkson’s production of Farquhar’s…