WHEN the 19-year-old Shelagh Delaney burst onto the theatre scene with her first play, A Taste of Honey, its gritty script and unrelenting subject matter kicked audiences and London-centric critics into the reality of existence in the north. Sixty years on it still has the power to shock, as it vividly shows the growing seeds…
THERE’S something strange and mysterious about Bulbarrow in Dorset, and it inspired writer Natasha Solomons in several of her successful novels, the first of which was Mr Rosenblum’s List. One of its characters, Curtis Butterworth, particularly endeared himself to her, so his own history became the subject for a short story, which has now been…
THE 2019 Celebrate Voice festival is in full swing in the pop-up Wilson’s Piccolo Theatre in Salisbury’s Guildhall Square, and after two days of jazz, cabaret and song, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro took to the stage on Sunday afternoon. In the six years since Lynsey Docherty created the festival, it established itself as one…
IT’S 20 years since Andrew Hilton took the ambitious and risky step of establishing a theatre company to perform Shakespeare – for five years – in the former Imperial Tobacco factory in Bristol’s Southville. In the intervening years the area has seen a resurgence of popularity, and the company, now known as stf, is a…
EDMOND Rostand’s 1897 verse play Cyrano de Bergerac draws its inspiration from the true story of a Gascon hero and poet, and its swashbuckling romance continues to excite and delight audiences in theatres and cinemas across the world. It is currently one of the flavours of the year, with new several new stage productions and…
IF the story contained in this opera was to appear on one of the film channels on television it would undoubtedly has a pre showing warning that it contains racially discriminatory language and out of date social images that might be offensive to some viewers. The producers of this show did not think it was a necessary to print such a warning in…
AMATEUR theatricals are the butt of many jokes but the best amateurs often bring a level of professionalism to their productions that stands comparison with many professional companies. Ian Hislop and Nick Newman used this well-known fact to great comic effect in their screenplay, A Bunch of Amateurs, but despite terrific performances by Burt Reynolds…
MOST people know this play from the glossy 1944 MGM film starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, with the 18-year-old Angela Lansbury (making her film debut) gaining an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for her portrayal of Nancy the cheeky maid and the role of Rough, the policeman, somewhat glamourised to accommodate the actor…
Strauss Metamorphosen Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Stephen Barlow: Conductor John Lill: Piano WE sometimes fail to appreciate how startling and revolutionary some of Beethoven’s earlier works would have seemed at first hearing in the context of what had been heard before. Just as the rather neglected…
WHEN, in 1948, the Oldfield Park Rangers Company presented their first shows, Hiawatha and The Pirates of Penzance, no men were allowed in the cast. Three years later, under the banner of the Bath Youth Operatic Group, they let the boys into the company. It was five years after the club’s first presentation, in 1956…