Reviews

Stunning production of Shaffer’s masterpiece

A NEW production of Peter Shaffer’s psychological thriller Equus comes to Bath Theatre Royal from Tuesday 2nd to Saturday 6th April, after its opening to rave reviews in London Director Ned Bennett’s startling staging of this thought-provoking modern classic is presented by English Touring Theatre and Theatre Royal Stratford East. When teenager Alan Strang’s pathological fascination…

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Murder at Short Mere House, MADS at Mere Lecture Hall

THREE (or was it four?) bodies have been found at Short Mere House, and it’s certain that not all their deaths were due to natural causes. The question is, (or rather “the questions are”) who dunnit, whydidtheydoit and withwhatdidtheydoit?  And the answers at this Mere Amateur Dramatic Society murder mystery supper must come from the…

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The Bodyguard – The Musical, Bristol Hippodrome

FROM the sudden blackout and gun shot which starts the show, and startles the audience, to the built in encore when the entire company reappear demanding that the audience rise to their feet and join them in I Wanna Dance With Somebody this show delivers to what has now become a cult following audience everything…

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Caroline’s Kitchen at Bath Theatre Royal

TORBEN Betts is the man who became director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough when Alan Ayckbourn handed over the reins, so it’s no surprise that his play Caroline’s Kitchen  (originally titled Monogamy) has indelible touches of the UK’s most prolific playwright. Set in the real life North London kitchen of television cook Caro­line…

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Dangerous Corner, Street Theatre at Strode Theatre, Street

DANGEROUS Corner was JB Priestley’s first play, and the precursor to his other “time” plays. Set in 1932, it is the story of an evening in the home of publisher Robert and Freda Caplan, where they are entertaining Robert’s co-director Gordon Whitehouse and his young wife Betty, staff member Olwen and the novelist Miss Mockridge. It…

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A Child of Our Time, BSO at Poole Lighthouse,

Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Tippett – A Child of Our Time BSO, leader David Juritz Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, director Gavin Carr       David Hill: Conductor Lauren Fagan:  Soprano Christine Rice:  Mezzo-Soprano Samuel Sakker: Tenor Simon Shibambu: Bass THIS concert started with a wonderful surprise: we settled in…

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Annie at Bristol Hippodrome

THE long-running comic strip Little Orphan Annie, 1922/2010, particularly the first 63 years when it was drawn by its originator Harald Gray, was full of often controversial political and social comment. By the time it reached Broadway and London’s West End in the late 1970s it had become a much softer sentimental tale which audiences…

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Much Ado About Nothing, Northern Broadsides at Salisbury Playhouse

  SHAKESPEARE’S dark comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, is one of his most popular works, offering directors apparently limitless opportunities to change its period and its setting without diminishing its impact. It has two central love affairs, one wryly funny and fuelled by life and experience, the other really rather nasty. In this terrific new…

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Glengarry Glen Ross, Bath Theatre Royal

DAVID Mamet’s 1984 Pulitzer prizewinning play Glengarry Glen Ross is on its first UK tour, stopping at Bath Theatre Royal until Saturday 23rd March. Widely praised for its accurately brutal look at the world of sales in a capitalist society, it is set in Chicago over two desperate days. What you need to remember watching…

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Jon Pickard, harp-guitar, St Patrick’s Day concert, Castle Cary

IF you picture the Celtic lands as windswept moors, dramatic cliffs and crashing seas, with the rain battering down, then the eve of St Patrick’s Day was probably perfect, and the storms lashing Castle Cary set the mood for an evening of music for St Patrick’s Day, performed by the virtuoso guitarist and harp-guitarist Jon…

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