ALAN Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce is one of the most frequently performed of his huge back catalogue, and the latest comes from the versatile Swan Theatre company in Yeovil. Directed by Beryl Snadden with a clever set designed by Geoff Kneller, it is the story of how one selfish and infuriating couple (Trevor and Susannah) can…

AS we move closer to the centenary of the start of the First World War, the Dorchester-based New Hardy Players pay a timely tribute to Thomas Hardy’s own thoughts about war … the Napoleonic War, that is. Extraordinarily, the programme for this touring production, directed by Tim Laycock and Emma Hill, notes that at the…

AT the beginning of the 20th century, Cecil Sharp collected hundreds of folksongs from working people in Somerset and inspired many other composers and collectors, including Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams, to do the same in other parts of the country. In Dorset, brothers Henry and Robert Hammond were similarly inspired, travelling around the…

ALAN Bennett’s 1986 play Kafka’s Dick not only predates the British writer’s position as national treasure but allowed him to explore both his fascination with the Czech’s work but his views on intellectualism and pretentiousness. It is one of his least performed works, but audiences in the south west have a chance to catch up…

BURRINGTON Combe should surely benefit from a few extra visitors this week, as the place which inspired the original Rock Of Ages, in 1763.The hymn, by the Reverend Augustus Toplady, was written after he sheltered from a storm in a cleft in a rock in the Somerset village, a rock since renamed the Rock Of…

SHAKESPEARE’S final play, The Tempest, set on an island full of magic and strange noises, is the perfect vehicle for Miracle Theatre’s special brand of open air performance. Director Bill Scott has cleverly adapted and abridged the original so the whole thing can be performed by just six actors. The touring set is made up…

IFORD Manor near Bradford on Avon may well be the most beautiful setting for “garden opera” but it is also the smallest, with performances in a cloister that seats about 100 around a tiny acting space. So it’s not surprising that Jeff Clarke, founder and artistic director of Opera della Luna, said a resounding NO,…

IN 1992 Crazy for You, a “new” Gershwin musical comedy, hit the stage, incorporating some of the songs from the original Girl Crazy and other Gershwin shows with a sort of mix-and-match story influenced by Anything Goes, Calamity Jane etc. Set in Deadrock, Nevada (instead of Deadwood, South Dakota) and involving a young man who…

NOEL Coward’s classic marital comedy Private Lives retains its appeal and enchantment 84 years on from its first appearance, only proving what a keen observer of human nature The Master was. The setting (in Deauville and Paris) and the language may be a bit dated, but the more people change, the more they stay the…

EDWARD Albee’s 1962 play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is widely regarded as one of the very finest American plays of the 20th century, thrust onto the international scene four years later when the golden couple of the time, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, starred in the multi award winning film of the play. Claustrophobically…