YEOVIL has done it again. Bravely, full of determination and belief, relying on the extraordinary talents of local and visiting performers and support from audiences, the Octagon/Westlands team has mounted a show that is nothing short of a triumph. Jack and the Beanstalk opened on Friday 13th December, flying in the face of superstition. With…
PANTOMIME is all about familiarity – familiar stories, familiar routines, familiar songs, familiar faces … and Bath Theatre Royal has it in spades, plus the most beautiful theatre in the country. For many years, the theatre had one of panto’s great double acts – the much-missed Dame and writer, Chris Harris and his knockabout sidekick,…
THE story of Robin Hood, outlawed in Sherwood Forest and famous for robbing the rich to give to the poor, is the most obvious of all the traditional stories to politicise – it’s all there in the massive body of stories that first emerged in the poem Piers Plowman, written in around 1370. You might…
BRISTOL Old Vic’s 2024-25 Christmas show takes this famous story, gives it a contemporary environmental twist and creates something more beautiful, more powerful, more moving and more thoughtful than the original. It will also probably be the most inspiring Christmas show of the year – with a message that sings and swims throughout from the…
EDITH Evans, that grand theatrical dame who took over-acting to a fine art, once became so exasperated with a ‘method’ actor, who in rehearsal was moving and doing things continually during a scene, that she exploded – and, fixing the young man with a beady eye, announced in stertorous tones to one and all: “Young…
BACK in 2018, Salisbury Playhouse came up with a national award-winning version of Beauty and the Beast, which remains in my memory as the finest new pantomime version of a favourite story ever – and I really have been to a few hundred pantos in my time – oh yes I have! Now, after all…
IF you are inexperienced in the ways of children … when a little girl in the audience leaps into her parents’s arms seeking safety and comfort, after Nigel (Joey Hickman), one of Hansel and Gretel’s parents, driven crazy by lack of food, tries to eat some of the audience … you could well question whether…
Marley was dead, to begin with … NO matter how grumpy Scrooge is, you can be sure he will be bringing smiles and festive joy when he makes his annual visits during December – and this year there is a variety of Christmas Carols on tour in Dorset and the surrounding area, starting with The…
CINDERELLA is the most popular of pantomimes, but this season the only professional production in the south west is at Exeter’s Northcott Theatre, where Le Navet Bete (that’s Daft Turnip in translation) has taken the story and shaken it up a bit, to the delight of children, parents, grandparents and other panto lovers. The three…
THE big Christmas 2024 puzzler in the Cotswolds is whether 3 is less than 6, just like 6, or greater than 6? And if you have already been to Cirencester’s Barn Theatre this festive season, you may well have the answer. If not, I strongly suggest you get your tickets for The Three Musketeers –…
THE National Trust has the care of some of the most enchanting, historic locations in the south west – and they look their best in the run-up to Christmas. From magical illuminated trails through world-famous gardens to Christmas wreath-making workshops, from the chance to visit Santa’s grotto to the excitement of winter storytelling, here is…
THE only Christmassy thing about Jeeves Takes Charge, the marvellously entertaining show at Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio until 4th January, is the nickname of the writer … Plum. A selection of the beloved PG Wodehouse stories of Bertie Wooster and his ever-dependable butler, Jeeves, have been adapted by James Duke, Edward Duke and the…
THE story of a beautiful woman cursed by a jealous one, and forced to sleep for a century, is as old as time. The first recorded mention was back in the 1330s, revived by French writer Charles Perrault in 1697 and taken by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. Whatever its history, the tale is a…
WHY is it that fairy tales are always described as timeless? It is just because they are just as relevant to every new generation of children, as Chippenham-born writer and actor Florence Espeut-Nickless discovered when she was preparing the Bristol Old Vic Weston Studio Christmas show, Little Red and Other Winter Tales. Florence, the “writer…
PHILIPPA Davis, a Shaftesbury-based chef and food-writer, has a new six-part food and travel television series, available on Prime Video, celebrating the wonderful food and drink of Dorset. A Taste of Dorset takes Philippa all over the county – from Cranborne Chase to the Devon border, meeting some of the outstanding producers who have made…
AS always, the December film choice from Moviola is somewhat shorter than the rest of the year, with at least one perennial festive favourite popping up on a village hall screen somewhere. This year, the old favourite is that 1946 classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, at Chard Guildhall, on Friday 13th December, produced and directed…
ONE of the most enchanting stage stories for children, Snow Mouse returns to Bath’s Egg theatre this Christmas for the tenth consecutive year, from Friday 29th November to Sunday 5th January. This “delightful” (The Stage) seasonal tale for the very young, performed in the Roper Room, is perfect for children aged six months to four…