WATER and the sea are the constant backdrop for Philip Goulding’s play A Fine Bright Day Today, and so the incessant downpour that greeted the audience leaving the Swan Theatre seemed almost appropriate. It’s the story of a 30-year widow and her daughter and an American hobby painter. Margaret has lived since her trawlerman husband’s…

PANTOMIME animals come in all shapes and sizes and are an essential element of the show – stroppy horses kicking up their heels, poor Daisy the cow on her way to market, quick-witted Puss in boots or helping Dick Whittington and even Captain Hook’s nemesis, the ticking crocodile. Highcliffe Charity Players’ Treasure Island boasts what…

HILARY Mantel’s award winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies have been adapted for the stage by Mike Poulton, and are currently part of the Swan Theatre season at the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. And while fans await the publication of The Mirror and the Light, the third part of Mantel’s…

BOURNEMOUTH Symphony Orchestra’s Resonate Strings is a quintet made up of members of the BSO who, as well as playing in the concert hall, perform in smaller venues, working with different audiences and leading a variety of musical activities. Their “Winter Serenade” was presented in partnership with Artsreach – one of the first events in…

PETER James is one of the UK’s best known crime writers, with his 25 novels translated into 36 languages, and his novella The Perfect Murder spending 15 weeks at the top of the best seller charts. Last year it was announced that the book would be adapted for the stage by Shaun McKenna, and audiences…

THERE’S a talking, walking, scheming feline in Street until 4th January, and he and his chums are delighting audiences at Strode Theatre. Glastonbury and Street Musical Comedy Society is back on the Strode stage for the fourth Christmas season, this year with Keith Marsden and Geoffrey Rundle’s version of Puss in Boots, directed by Rodney…

SALISBURY’S Salberg Studio has a Christmas hit on its hands with this year’s alternative show. The venue has built up a reputation for its cabaret-style shows, which in recent years have focussed on various songbooks. But perhaps the format had run its course, and Playhouse artistic director Gareth Machin and MD Kate Edgar put their…

IF what you want from your Christmas live entertainment is laughter, colour and SPECTACLE you can’t beat Robinson Crusoe and the Caribbean Pirates at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton until 12th January. The bones of the traditional story are here – Robinson, Man Friday, pirates, etc – but this version (by Brian Conley and Michael…

ANNE of Green Gables is one of those stories that many people remember from their youth, in my case from a Sunday evening BBC dramatisation in the 1970s watched by all the family in the days when we only had three channels, and the story itself fosters the same sort of nostalgia in audiences when…

YEOVIL Octagon has its best pantomime ever this year, as Snow White bites her poisoned apple, the Magnificent Seven dwarfs dig their diamonds and the region’s finest dame Steve Bennett proves himself to be an arch improviser and master of comic timing. This is the second Evolution pantomime at the Octagon, which now, with the…