MATTHEW Bourne’s The Midnight Bell, inspired by the writings of novelist Patrick Hamilton and set in central London in the early 1930s, is a febrile investigation of love and how to find it, as well as a nostalgic plunge into a barely-remembered time. We know, looking at the era from the next century, what was…
ON the face of it, Hairspray is just a lightweight bit of fun – especially a production like this one, that fully captures the feel of the 1960s, with back-combed beehive hair styles and clothes to match. But lurking just below the surface are the prejudices of racism that prevent black dancers even auditioning for…
THE Bath Mozart Fest took us musically through three of the four seasons, Spring, Summer and Autumn, in the course of just 24 hours. Spring came in the form of four members of the BBC New Generation Artists – pianist Elisabeth Brauss, violinist Aleksey Semenenko, violist Elvind Ringstad and cellist Andrei Ionita. In music, as…
IF I was to ask 1,000 people who won the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, I doubt that more than a handful would come up with the answer – Irish duo Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan singing Rock ‘n Roll Kids. If I mentioned the name Michael Flatley, a dancer who led an Irish dance team…
THERE are moments when the magic of theatre is almost tangible, seconds or even minutes when a whole auditorium holds its breath, intense passages when even the stage lighting seems to change subtly and you don’t know whether it’s the lighting engineer’s skill or your brain that is lowering the level. Conor McPherson’s The Weir…
MERE Amateur Dramatic Society has welcomed its faithful audience back to the Lecture Hall with four short plays, one the premiere of a solo show by a well-known local playwright, and another a revived radio play by the mother of a Mere resident. The evening begins with Jean McConnell’s Day Trippers, performed by Rose Heesom…
FACED with the option of facing an audience at 11am on a Monday morning, or 7.30pm, Tuesday evening, I know which one I would choose. Like true professionals, the hour of 11am and the coolness of the Assembly Rooms did not phase Rachel Podger and Christopher Glynn for a moment. With their musical skills and…
ALAN Ayckbourn’s 1980 play Season’s Greetings is perhaps the polar opposite of all those sickly, soft-focus images of the perfect family festivities. Set in the home of Neville and Belinda Bunker, the five scenes start on Christmas Eve and end in the early hours of 27th December, and show how the family and friends slot…
THE fact that the Mozart Fest has returned to Bath after the trials and tribulations and uncertainties of the past year or so is a triumph in itself. Chairman Sir David Bell and his fellow directors had to take a tremendous amount on trust, right down to printing programmes for a Fest which at the…
UNIVERSITY students have had a massively challenging, and disappointing, time during the pandemic lockdowns and cancellations, segregated from the majority of their friends, colleagues and teachers and learning for all-important exams by Zoom meetings and virtual lessons. So it’s all the more impressive that the BA(Hons) students at AUB have re-emerged into the public spotlight…