JM BARRIE’S story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up, has a timeless and enduring appeal – perhaps not surprising when we have a Prime Minister who can’t resist saying he likes a glamorous TV cook in the middle of a trial when she’s a witness or taking a photograph of himself…
BATH’S show for very small children and their families this Christmas is Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter, adapted for the egg stage by Hattie Naylor for Horse and Bamboo. The theatre company has built up a reputation for its delightful and beautifully told stories, using puppets and multi-media. At the egg, until Sunday 12th January, on…
MOST of us come to Hoffman’s story of The Nutcracker via the ballet and spectacular productions replete with Tchaikovsky’s music, sugar plum fairies and Christmas trees that start from a dot centre stage and rise to fill the space to the very top. But it’s a darker and more magical story that Hattie Naylor and…
THE rumbling voice of Giant Blunderbore, with its chorus of Fe Fi Fo Fum, fills the auditorium of Poole’s Lighthouse for the annual pantomime, this year a wonderfully traditional version of Jack and the Beanstalk, with enough new and modern touches to keep audiences of all ages on their toes. Judging by the response of…
THE West Gallery church music that Thomas Hardy knew and loved was brought to vivid life again last week in two picturesque West Dorset churches in concerts organised by Artsreach, Dorset’s rural arts organisation. The West Gallery concerts at Winterbourne Abbas and Abbotsbury churches, were part of Rooting Around the Ridgeway, a South Dorset Ridgeway…
THE Frome Merlin Christmas show has built up a reputation for invention, technical excellence and a chance for a whole community to take part, and this year’s production of Clemence Dane’s 1948 stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic books is no exception. Fledgling director Anne Dimery, who has staged managed countless Merlin shows, has created…
SALISBURY Playhouse has chosen a traditional pantomime again this year, and the familiar story of Dick Whittington has some clever twists and a modern makeover in the very funny script by Andrew Pollard. If you choose not to have a female principal boy, it’s essential that the actor in the leading heroic role is handsome,…
WHAT watery treats are in store for theatregoers in Bristol this Christmas – with The Little Mermaid and Antarctica at the Old Vic, and now Last Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor at the Tobacco Factory in Bedminster. The venue has linked up with Travelling Light theatre to devise this wonderfully inventive retelling of some of…
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Conductor: Yan Pascal Tortelier Augustin Hadelich, Violin R Strauss Till Eulenspiegel Hindemith Mathis der Maler Symphony Beethoven Violin Concerto ‘Pranks and Penitence’ was the somewhat puzzling label that BSO’s marketing department put on this diverse programme. The pranks were clearly in the first piece, but neither of the others deals particularly with…
MODERN theatres all over the country are looking for that elusive formula that allows them to put on a non-pantomime Christmas show for the family without compromising on the essential elements that have made panto so successful for so many years. And in these cash-strapped times, that means not only a fresh approach to music…