STURMINSTER Newton Amateur Dramatic Society has a new star in its 2014 pantomime – no mean feat in a show that features SNADS’ delicious regular dame, Ian Greig, as Mrs Twinkey the cook, and Giles Henschel channelling his inner villain as a dastardly Captain Hook. Holly Fripp, who plays Wendy in this new version of the…
DAWN King’s new play Ciphers, ending its tour at Salisbury, is an exploration of life in 21st century England, when surveillance and counter-intelligence are underpinned by rapidly developing technologies and espionage takes on a new importance. This production, directed by Blanche McIntyre for Out of Joint, Bush Theatre and Exeter Northcott, is performed on a…
MARY Anning should perhaps join Thomas Hardy as the first names to come to mind when Dorset is mentioned, and although her story has been better known in recent years, her extraordinary achievements are still not really synonymous with the Jurassic Coast, as it is now designated. That situation has been improved by Tracy Chevalier’s…
PATRICK Hamilton, who wrote Gaslight in 1938, went out of theatrical fashion long before his death in 1962. But many regard his works, notably Hanover Square and Rope as well as Gaslight, as superior to many of his more famous contemporaries. The thriller Gaslight, on stage at Salisbury until Saturday 1st March, has been a…
DAMON Runyan’s swirling, sleazy view of Prohibition New York, as encapsulated in his short stories Blood Pressure and The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown, inspired one of the great classics of musical theatre, Guys and Dolls. The Frank Loesser show has continued to excite directors, actors, singers, dancers and audiences since it first appeared in…
IT’S hard to imagine a more timely play than Crysse Morrison’s Fixing It, half of a double bill presented by Stepping Out Theatre at the Alma Tavern in Bristol. This deeply thought-provoking play shines a spotlight on the complex and conflicting thoughts that many “children of the sixties” must be having in the wake of…
IF your first thought on seeing the poster for Inside Llewyn Davis is “Bob Dylan, Freewheelin” then this latest from the Coen brothers is for you. Set in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, on the eve of the folk music explosion that launched the careers of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and many more, it…
AUGUST, Osage County began life as a play by Tracy Letts, an actor and playwright member of Chicago’s famous Steppenwolf theatre company, debuted by the company and taken to great acclaim on Broadway, with a Pulitzer Prize along the way. The film is quite clearly a play – in the same way that Edward Albee’s…
SIMON Beaufoy has adapted his much-loved, thoroughly British film, based at the end of the 80s recession, into a play, full of emotion, passion, comedy, pathos and dance. Thankfully, this is not the musical version of The Full Monty, which appeared in 2000, set in Boston, USA, and with new writers; this is the original…
IF you want a career in theatre, never forget that old adage “the show must go on.” It’s an enduring truth and never more so than for the cast of the Arts University Bournemouth’s production of Persuasion, staged at Pavilion Dance from 30th January to 1st February. Helen Watts, artistic director and co-founder of Dorset…