AMERICAN imperialism and child sex trafficking are never out of the news these days, but when Giacomo Puccini composed Madame Butterfly the adverse audience reaction was to the music rather than the subject matter. For the final opera of the 2018 Iford Festival, director Bruno Ravella has tried to merge both the political reality of…
IF there is a more perfect setting than the 17th century Dutch walled garden of Hatch House near Tisbury, for an evening of spectacular classical and contemporary dance and delicious food, it is difficult to imagine. Each year, Matt Brady’s Covent Garden Dance Company seems to bring more exciting dancers, each year the commissions, from…
VERONICA Stewart was a force to be reckoned with in the arts community in and around Salisbury, passionately interested in music, sculpture, theatre, literature and painting. So it is fitting that her early death in 2011 should have inspired her family and friends to celebrate her life by creating a short term trust to support…
“A LITTLE of both, guv’ner, a little of both,” was Alfred P Doolittle’s reply in Pygmalion when asked if he was an honest man or a rogue. Take that idea on a little and the reply to what this play is trying to illustrate would give you not two but several answers. Tenuously they are…
OSCAR Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, first seen in 1895, centered on blackmail and political corruption and packed with typical bon mots, comes from the West End to Bath for the first play of the Theatre Royal’s summer season, until 4th August. Not only is the production opulently set and star-studded, but director Jonathan Church takes…
REMEMBRANCE of the First World War now generally concentrates on November, the month of its end, but there is no more poignant place and time to ponder its pain and horror than an English village on a sleepy summer’s day. And surely no English village could provide a finer setting for a walk of poetry…
NEIL Simon’s three-piece Plaza Suite, which opened in New York 50 years ago, is a trio of playlets about marriage, all set in the same suite of the luxury hotel overlooking Central Park. A wife tries to celebrate her anniversary by booking in to the same suite where she and her husband spent their wedding…
IF Hamlet is the North Face of the Eiger for a young actor, King Lear is Everest for an older one. You need a profound experience of life as well as the stage to begin to understand the character. The role requires huge vocal and physical strength, and the actor must convey a hint of…
ANTON Chekhov always described his play The Cherry Orchard as a comedy. I have seen many productions over the years, and always thought it would take a miracle to make it substantially funny. Sadly, it was a sleight of hand beyond the powers of the Cornish-based Miracle Theatre, currently performing Bill Scott’s adaptation of the…
WHEN you think of Twelfth Night as a comedy, you probably picture the impish Maria making a fool of the self-serving Puritan steward Malvolio, of cowardly Sir Andrew trying (not) to fight a duel with Cesario/Viola. Olivia is the black figure of mourning in the back of the action – the wealthy young woman, still…