SHAKESPEARE is back at Bedminster’s Tobacco Factory, in a stunning new production by Heidi Vaughan, the venue’s artistic director and CEO. It seems a long time since the company Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory was last performing on the cigar packing room floor of the former Wills Factory. Andrew Hilton’s company ran for 20 years…
YOU don’t often hear the phrase “protest singer” these days, but the tradition – which stretches back for many years in unions and traditional working communities, and was reinvented by the folk singers of the 1960s – lives on in Reg Meuross, the Crewkerne-based singer-songwriter whose work has always championed the issues of the day,…
SWISS playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt studied philosophy and went to Berlin for postgraduate studies into Kierkegaard. There, he quickly formed a very different view of his native country and its famed neutrality, instead seeing a state polluted by greed and hypocrisy where neutrality was a euphemism for complicity. The fledgling philosopher turned his attention to playwriting…
THERE’S something about trees and since the publication of Merlin Sheldrake’s fascinating book Entangled Life, we know that there are forces underground, in constant communication with one another. So, if you have been in a forest and been aware of an invisible presence, it’s not really surprising … and humans have had that feeling for…
CONNOR McPherson’s 1997 play The Weir, written when he was in his mid-20s, is set in a dilapidated pub in County Leitrim on a windy night. At first sight it’s a ghostly story, and that is how some of the many productions around the world have played it. When Dennis Barwell chose it to direct…
THE acclaimed writer of Broadchurch and show runner of Dr Who, Chris Chibnell, will be on home ground when he launches his new book, Death at the White Hart, at Bridport Arts Centre on Monday 24th March. The story is set in the picturesque (fictional) Dorset village of Fleetcombe, which has two pubs, a small…
JODIE Comer is coming to Bath Theatre Royal in February 2026, reprising her BAFTA, Emmy, Tony and Olivier Award-winning solo performance in Suzie Miller’s powerful play Prima Facie. Bath is one of nine destinations on the UK and Ireland tour, with the world-famous production appearing at the Theatre Royal from Tuesday 24th to Saturday 28th…
THE multi-talented and super-versatile members of Yeovil Amateur Operatic Society have scored another triumph with their latest show at Westlands. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is Roald Dahl’s enduring, darkly-funny tale of a poor boy who proves his passion for chocolate to the very peculiar owner of the chocolate factory. And the Yeovil group has…
ONE of the country’s most scenically beautiful visual arts venues, Sculpture by the Lakes, at Pallington near Dorchester, hosts an exhibition by The Arborealists, from 22nd March to 19th April, the first time the group has exhibited in Dorset. The Arborealists group, which was founded in 2013, comprises 50 professional artists, who celebrate trees in…
Old English roses and a menu of local food – a new team at the Walled Garden, Mells ONE of the most beautiful “secret” gardens in our area, The Walled Garden at Mells re-opens on 2nd April with a Somerset menu, a focus on old English roses, a new chef cooking local produce and the…
ALFRED Hitchcock, the master of spine-tingling tension and thrills, famously said: “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” So expect plenty of terror and nail-biting anticipation as Bath Theatre Royal stages the world premiere production of Alfred Hitchcock presents – The Musical, from Saturday 22nd March to Saturday 12th…
STUDENTS from Arts University Bournemouth are heading for the Palace Court Theatre from 20th to 22nd March for the first production of 2025. Director David O’Shea has chosen Friedrich Durrenmatt’s The Visit, but updated its setting from the original post War German to a post Brexit Britain drowning under the cost of living crisis. Set…
DORSET-based writer Ed Viney’s play Pot Licker is on a tour of Dorset, with dates in Exeter and Bath. After its premiere at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre, where it was first seen at a new writing event, it continues at Weymouth College Bay Theatre on 18th March, The Royal Manor Theatre on Portland on 19th,…
The three largest theatres in the south-west region, Southampton Mayflower (seating 2,300) Bristol Hippodrome (1,951), and Plymouth Theatre Royal (1,320), are the places to see the big touring musicals, and their 2025 schedule includes major national tours. The Mayflower will stage Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop American history musical Hamilton (pictured below) , from 18th March to…
DORSET Opera Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary at Bryanston School’s Coade Hall this year, following its move to Blandford from its original home at Sherborne School. This year’s festival will run from 22nd to 26th July, and will include two formal dinners in Bryanston House. The opera programme is thrilling, with Verdi’s cruel but musically…
JACK Dickson, a member of the art department at Bryanston School, Blandford, was featured on a recent edition of Bill Bailey’s BBC series Extraordinary Portraits. The programme featured Jack’s portrait of a remarkable, life-saving, railway worker, Rizwan Javed. East Londoner Rizwan, who works for London Underground, has saved 29 people from taking their own lives…
THE Marine Theatre at Lyme Regis welcomes Jamaican DJ and MC Congo Natty on Friday 21st March, folk rockers Mad Dog Mcrea return on 22nd and Oisin Leech, the Irish folk singer and songwriter (pictured) will be introducing his music to Dorset fans on Wednesday 26th. Brit pop singer songwriter John Power is at Lyme…
A FILM which has already garnered many awards and is expected to win more at the Oscars suddenly feels uncannily topical as well. Conclave, the drama surrounding the selection of a new Pope, could hardly be more timely as one of the most in-demand films for March with Moviola audiences. Based on Robert Harris’s gripping…
CONCEPTUAL artist Ben Oakley is bringing a collection of work by ten artists, From The City To The Sea, to the gallery at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre, opening on 7th March and running to 19th April. Ben explains: “After creating the Ben Oakley Gallery in 2010 as a platform for emerging artists, we have now…
THE priceless 13th century Sarum Master Bible is going go on public display for the first time at Salisbury Cathedral, from 28th February to 20th March, following a successful fundraising campaign by Friends of the Nations’ Libraries. The Bible is a manuscript of exceptional artistic value with great significance to Salisbury. It is just 17cm…
FOR the second year running, Folde nature bookshop at Shaftesbury has been named as a regional and country finalists in the British Book Awards. Last year the shop, at the top of Gold Hill, got through to the finals of the awards, which are known as the NIBBIEs. The awards are organised by The Bookseller…
VISITORS to the National Trust’s world-famous Stourhead landscape gardens, near Mere in Wiltshire, can now discover the history of the property as they walk around the gardens. A new audio introduction brings the history of this masterpiece of 18th century landscape creation to life through narration and storytelling, with professional actors and an original score….
THE National Trust is restoring areas of wood pasture on Purbeck, as part of a project to amplify nature’s chorus. Wood pasture is a prime habitat for our much-loved songbirds, like this beautiful thrush. One of the UK’s most biodiverse habitats, wood pasture is a mosaic of grassland, scrub, hedges and trees. It provides important…
IBSEN’S classic play Hedda Gabler is the next on stage at the Tin Studio Theatre where Amateur Players of Sherborne have made their home. Directed by Graham Smith, the production runs from 24th to 29th March, nightly at 7.30. It is the story of a woman trapped in a loveless marriage, fighting to hide the…
BE My Baby, Amanda Whittington’s first play, was performed at Salisbury Playhouse’s Salberg Studio in 2024, and now it comes back to the city for a production by Studio Theatre at their Ashley Road home. Set in 1964, it centres around Mary, a pregnant 19-year-old who is sent by her mother to a mother and…
THE British and Irish Cheese Awards return to the Bath and West show ground over the weekend 21st to 23rd March, running again this year in conjunction with the Bath and West Food and Drink Festival, which is in its second year. With more than 500 entries from around the United Kingdom, the British and…
HOT on the heels of their triumphs with 2024’s The Drowsy Chaperone, Milborne Port Opera moves into new territory again this year, with a production of the musical version of The Witches of Eastwick, on stage at the Village Hall from 23rd to 26th April. Most people know the story, adapted from John Updike’s 1984…
THE last pitched battle fought on English soil took place at Sedgemoor – the aftermath, which included the infamous “Bloody Assuzes” of Judge Jeffreys, is the subject of the major spring exhibition at the Museum of Somerset. Remembering the Monmouth Rebellion will be on show from 29th March to 6th July. The exhibition is part…
HOW do you react when someone you love has a terminal diagnosis? Shock, grief, anger, silence, sympathy … humour? Myra Bradley (Rachel Butcher) is diagnosed with bone cancer and told she has about six months to live. She wants to make the most of her time; she wants to choose where she will be buried;…
A STORY inspired by Sir Michael Morpurgo’s own family history is brought to the stage by adapter Simon Reade and the adventurous team at Cirencester’s Barn Theatre, from Friday 28th March to Saturday 10th May. In the Mouth of the Wolf is the true story of Morpurgo’s uncles in the Second World War. That war…
BONFIRE Radicals, described as a “proper folk melting pot,” bring their blend of Balkan, African, French, Scandinavian, Irish and British musical influences to the Somerset Take Art circuit. coming to Roadwater village hall on Friday 28th March and Caryford Community Hall at Castle Cary on Saturday 29th. With a front line of recorders, fiddle, clarinet…
A STARRY film adaptation of Raynor Winn’s best-selling memoir The Salt Path is to open at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre as part of its national release on Friday 30th May. The film stars Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs as Raynor and her husband Moth who, following his terminal diagnosis and the devastating loss of their…
ASK many people which is their favourite English city … the answer will often be Bath. It’s hardly surprising – a pearl of fine Georgian stone houses, terraces, circuses, crescents and streets, set in a spectacular valley, with some of the country’s finest Roman remains and a history of art, culture and literature. A roll call…
DORSET’s Artsreach rural touring charity is working on a unique collaboration with the Anglo-Chilean band Quimantú and community singers from several Dorset choirs to perform Misa de los Mineros, The Miners’ Mass, in a series of concerts across the county, starting in April. The first Dorset concert takes place in Blandford Parish Church on Friday…
THE big spring exhibition at the Somerset Rural Life Museum at Glastonbury, on until 8th June, is Strength and Resilience: Somerset Women in the Second World War, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, by focusing on the lives of four women who played their part during the conflict and…
HOWARD Phipps, the distinguished wood engraver, who lives near Salisbury, is the featured artist in the 87th annual exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers, which opened at London’s Bankside Gallery, and comes to Make South West in Bovey Tracey from 1st March to 21st April and later at galleries on Merseyside, in Oxford and…