ALAN Ayckbourn had already written as many plays as Shakespeare by the age of 48, the age at which the Bard died, and has now completed almost 80 plays. He enjoys gimmicks, such as his Norman Conquest trilogy, in which the action takes place in three parts of the same house, living room, dining room…
ALAN Bennett’s 13 television plays Talking Heads are widely regarded as mini-masterpieces, and marked the beginning of his recognition as a major playwright. Now the Bournemouth based ImpAct Theatre has chosen three – Her Big Chance, originally performed by Julie Walters, A Chip in the Sugar, which Bennett performed himself, and A Lady of Letters,…
JOAN Littlewood’s extraordinary musical satire Oh What a Lovely War is possibly the most effective anti-war show ever devised, accessible to all ages and attitudes and shining the searchlight from all angles on the reality of conflicts. In this Great War anniversary year, productions of the show – first performed by Theatre Workshop in East…
BATH audiences are fortunate to be able to see a powerful and important award-winning American play, receiving its UK premiere this month at the Theatre Royal’s Ustinov studio. Joshua Harmon’s play Bad Jews is set in a New York studio apartment with a view of the Brooklyn river glimpsed from the bathroom. Brothers Liam and…
EMILE Zola’s intense novel Therese Raquin gets the Helen Edmundson treatment at Bath Theatre Royal this summer. This new adaptation, steeped in the inescapable power of unleashed passion and guilt, is on stage at Bath until 16th August as part of the summer season. The adapter’s work with Shared Experience is evident in Jonathan Munby’s…
AL Stewart has been many years in the USA and his recorded output is rare – the last album was 2009’s Uncorked – but his fan base is loyal and undiminished. So when he announced a one-off gig at the Tivoli in Wimborne, a couple of miles from where he grew up in a thatched…
THE Devon-based Shanty Theatre Company returns to the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis this year, much to the delight of their many local fans and enraptured holidaymakers. Shanty was set up by Harry Long and Tim Bell, and they are now also joint artistic directors of the historic theatre on the cliffs above the East…
WHEN I was a child, my cousins and friends went to holiday camps in the summer and it always sounded like fun. But I had no idea quite WHAT fun it could be until I signed up for a session at Adina’s Holiday Camp, set up for a week at Salisbury Cattle Market. Winterbourne Opera’s…
CLAUDIO Monteverdi wrote at least 18 operas, only four of which remain, and most were “lost” from their first performances in the 17th century for hundreds of years. Although the fashion for “early opera” had a resurgence in the late 20th century, it is a rare treat to hear his Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria,…
A POLITICAL prisoner lies in chains in the darkest deepest dungeon of a forbidding prison. His name is never spoken; the prison governor has ordered that he is given less food each day. He will shortly be murdered in his cell and the body hidden in a well. It is a scene that has been…