WEST Country folk singer-songwriter and story-teller Reg Meuross has two dates with Dorset’s rural arts chart Artsreach, as part of a tour with the West African musician Suntou Susso, performing a powerful show called Stolen from God. They will be at Cerne Abbas village hall on Tuesday 22nd October and Langton Matravers village hall on…
OLIVIER Award-winning theatre company Papatango comes to Dorset with a new version of Robert Wentall’s classic ghost story, The Watch House, at Poole Lighthouse on Saturday 26th October, Dorchester Corn Exchange on Sunday 27th, Swanage’s Mowlem Theatre on Tuesday 29th, the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, on Wednesday 30th and the Barnfkeld Theatre, Exeter on 5th…
EXPLORER, naturalist, conservationist, broadcaster and passionate lover of all things maritime, Steve Backshall is back on tour this autumn with a new show, Steve Backshall’s Ocean, celebrating what he calls “the most exciting environment on our planet – the ocean”. He is coming to Bournemouth Pavilion on Saturday 26th October, Weymouth Pavilion on Thursday 31st…
DELIGHTFUL plays for young children are one of the highlights of the autumn half-term in Dorset, with Artsreach bringing the Anglo-Swiss company Fideri Fidera for three dates from 28th to 30th October and Scarlet Oak Theatre on 30th and 31st. Fideri Fidera brings Oskar’s Amazing Adventure, to Millborne St Andrew village hall on Monday 28th…
THE historic heart of Bridgwater has a new visitor – Fallen Moon, an installation created by Bristol artist Luke Jerram, is on show in Bridgwater Docks, as part of the regeneration of this important port on the river Parrett. It will be visible in the docks until 3rd November. Luke Jerram is well-known for his…
A WELSH theatre company makes its debut with Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Tuesday 22nd October. Decommissioned is the first play from Wise Ram Theatre, written by co-director playwright Molly Ann Sweeney. Wise Ram Theatre is a new neurodiverse theatre company, which aims to make theatre about the climate crisis. “Cariad, I care…
A QUARTET of folk musicians whose influences range far and wide bring their exciting original music to Dorset in October. Counter’s Creek have three dates with Artsreach, starting on Friday 18th at Sydling St Nicholas village hall, on Saturday 19th at Briantspuddle and Sunday 20th at The Portman Hall at Shillingstone, all at 7.30pm. Counter’s…
YEOVIL Literary Festival 2024 has a stellar line-up with top writers, historians and poets coming to talk about and read from their latest works. Over the week from 18th to 27th October, the main festival hosts such household names as Martin Clunes, Wayne Sleep, Fern Britton, gardener Carol Klein, Clarkson’s hilarious sidekick Kaleb Cooper and…
PAVILION Dance South West comes to Bridport Arts Centre on Saturday 26th October and Pound Arts at Corsham on Friday 27th with Plastic Paradiso, Claire Benson’s environmental inspired performance which aims to engage children and families in the importance of saving the oceans and the value of recycling. There was once a wide, windswept place,…
THERE was a huge stir, followed by many awards, when Matthew Lopez’s play The Inheritance opened at The Young Vic in 2018, where its sell-out run led to a fast West End transfer. So perhaps it’s surprising that the American writer’s earlier works didn’t make it across the Atlantic, although his first play, The Whipping…
EMLYN Williams wrote his play Night Must Fall in 1935, long before the majority of the population felt themselves equipped to diagnose narcissism and most of the burgeoning number of psychiatric and psychological dis-eases of their fellow humans. But early audiences had absolutely no doubt that there was something very rum about Dan, the chipper…
EIGHT members of Sturminster Newton Amateur Dramatic Society (SNADS) have been working together for weeks to bring Craig White’s three Open University graduate plays to life on the stage of The Exchange – and the production was a thought-provoking delight for both audience and participants. The three short plays, Barney, Double-Glazed and Blood Sport, were…
THE Bristol-based theatre company Roustabout Theatre is touring an imaginative new show for children, Little Red Riding Could, a playful and mischievous retelling of the original fairytale, which is coming to Taunton’s Brewhouse arts centre on Saturday 19th October, Chew Valley Arts Centre on Sunday 20th, and other venues, ending at Bridport Arts Centre on…
THE brilliant and award-winning National Theatre production of War Horse, adapted from Michael Morporgo’s novel, was a massive hit at the National, in the West End, on Broadway and around the world. Now a new production of this beautiful and deeply moving story is on a national tour, at Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre until 19th October,…
THREE village halls in Dorset, Wiltshire and Devon host gigs by the multi-talented Americana duo Hungrytown – Tolpuddle village hall on Friday 11th October, Semley on Friday 18th and Upottery on Saturday 19th. Based in “the green hills of Vermont,” Rebecca Hall and Ken Anderson have been touring the world for years, exploring many different…
MOST people who know the name of William Barnes will think of him as the poet of the old Dorset dialect, the writer of Linden Lea, and a near-contemporary of a more famous Dorset literary star, Thomas Hardy. But who was at the real Barnes? Historian, musician and actor Tim Laycock is performing his play,…
THE spectacular late 19th century Grand Hall at Battersea Arts Centre provided an atmospheric and spacious setting for this year’s Golden Fork Awards, the climax of the Guild of Fine Food’s Great Taste Awards. And there was a great success for the West Country with the New Forest-based Lyburn Cheese winning the Golden Fork for…
THE Surrey-based Blackeyed Theatre celebrates its 20th anniversary with a new adaptation of Bram Stoker’s iconic epistolary novel Dracula, 100 years after it was first brought to the stage. The production, adapted and directed by Nick Lane, is on a UK tour until May next year, so if you miss it at Bath Theatre Royal, where…
IF you like chills, thrills and ghost tales, the new play at Cirencester’s Barn Theatre will really hit the spot. Room 13, by Duncan Abel and Rachel Wagstaff, is inspired by the famous ghost stories of MR James and is definitely proving a hit with audiences in the run-up to Hallowe’en. The production runs to…
LIVING Spit’s autumn recipe is on its way to a theatre near you. Mary Mallon is an Irish immigrant, an amiable host … and a killer? A talented cook in New York City in 1906 takes a job preparing delicious meals for yet another high society family, and yet again they begin to fall ill…
SALISBURY’S Celebrate Voice festival, this year from Wednesday 30th October to Saturday 9th November, once again brings a treasure chest of widely ranging music to the city. There is choral music and jazz, cabaret and opera, theatre and comedy and more packed into the 11 days, and no-one needs to feel left out – it…
THE deadline has been extended for farmers in Exmoor, Somerset and North Devon to get crucial advice to access the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2024. Registration closes on Monday 7th November, and the workshops will be running until December. The new date gives farmers a bit more time to sign up for a programme to help…
IF you are of a whimsical turn of mind (or a fan of Beatrix Potter), you will think “Squirrel Nutkin” when you see this beautiful red squirrel. But you don’t have to go to Potter’s Lake District to see these enchanting little animals. You can see them on Brownsea Island, the National Trust property in…
TWO of this region’s finest artists, landscape painter James Lynch and collagist and sculptor Marzia Colonna, have exhibitions this autumn at The Portland Gallery in Mayfair. Both artists have national – indeed, international – reputations, and this is an opportunity to see their work in solo shows at one of London’s most prestigious galleries. James Lynch,…
THE adventurous MAST studio theatre in Southampton has received a £5,000 sustainability grant, one of the latest awards from the Theatres Trust’s Small Grants Programme with The Linbury Trust. This latest round, which included the 100th grant (to Glastogow’s Tron theatre) marks the seventh round of the Small Grants programme, with 20 theatres receiving grants…
FORTY years ago community activists Sue and John Holman and Trevor Bailey decided to make a video about the North Dorset village of Bourton and its people. In the intervening years the film has been largely forgotten, but now the original tapes have been digitised by Windrose Media Trust, which was founded by Trevor Bailey,…
“THERE is no such thing as a bad audience, only bad performances” is an opinion that is often expressed, but I tend to dispute the claim, writing as someone who was a cast member of a farce which, after having the audience in fits of laughter night after night, ran up against an audience that…
ONE of Somerset’s finest traditional unpasteurised farmhouse Cheddar makers, Keen’s, based at Moorhayes Farm near Wincanton, has been named as the first People’s Cheese Champion, after three rounds of public voting in a new award organised by campaigning group The Real Cheese Project. Keen’s Extra Mature Cheddar was one of four finalists, voted in the…
A LOT of Hollywood and television stars seem to be drawn to the world of spirits – Ryan Reynolds, Brad Pitt and Emma Watson all have their own gin brands, and Outlander star Sam Heughan has a malt whisky. Now former Top Gear presenter James May has launched his own gin, made in Wiltshire, where…
THE autumn programme at Sladers Yard, the West Bay gallery, cafe and arts centre, gets under way with an exhibition running throughout October, featuring recent paintings by a gallery regular, a jazz concert with some favourite musicians and the latest in the series of Help Our Planet (HOP) talks. Skylines, the exhibition that runs to…
THE Sou’ Sou’ West gallery at Symondsbury, Bridport, hosts Elemental, an exhibition of sculpture and installations by three environmental artists, from 19th October to 10th November. The concept of the elemental is an ancient one, and this new exhibition is grounded in ideas and exchanges about the terrestrial and materiality. The elements – earth, water,…
WELLS Festival of Literature, one of the country’s longest established and most imaginatively programmed, runs this year from Friday 18th to Saturday 26th October, with speakers ranging from scientist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford to comedian Paul Sinha, favourite cookery writer Sophie Grigson to people’s poet Pam Ayres. Based at Cedars Hall at Wells Cathedral School,…
SHAFTESBURY Arts Centre’s music and drama group has chosen a dark comedy with a supernatural twist for its autumn production, from Thursday 17th to Saturday 19th October. Rehearsal, by talented local playwright, educator and author Steve McAuliffe, blends humour, chaos, and a touch of the unworldly with a setting and plot that make it an…
SHERBORNE International Film Festival, over the weekend 17th to 20th October, takes film-goers on an adventurous and exciting journey from Korea to Colombia, via Japan, China and France. The programme includes rarities and favourites and opens on Thursday evening with the spectacular 2002 Chinese historical drama Hero, at the festival venue, the Powell Theatre in…
PURBECK Film Festival, the country’s largest and most diverse rural celebration of film, will be 30 years next year. The 29th festival, from 18th October to 3rd November, has the theme of Food on Film (and food with film), in venues that range from Swanage’s Mowlem Theatre, Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre and Wareham’s historic Rex…
BOURNEMOUTH Chamber Music Society celebrates its 80th anniversary in the 2024-25 season, opening with a recital by Jiaxin, the cellist wife of the celebrated cello virtuoso Julian Lloyd Webber, on 20th October at the usual time of 3pm at Kimmeridge House on the Bournemouth University Talbot campus. The society made its debut on the local…
THE strangely competitive world of giant vegetable growing is at the heart of Swede Caroline, an unexpected hit that was filmed in Somerset around Shepton Mallet, and is the most in demand film in Moviola’s October programme. Caroline, the central character in this hilarious mockumentary, is understandably upset when her prized marrow plants are stolen….
EMMA Norman’s introduction to live theatre was pantomime in her home town, at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre. The magic and colour of that show caught her imagination. “It made me want to do this,” said this year’s Wicked Queen in Bath Theatre Royal’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. “It is the catalyst for so many…
CATHEDRALS are some of our most remarkable buildings – ancient, up to 800 years old in some cases, beautiful, spiritual and often located in remarkable positions. Durham immediately leaps to mind and St Paul’s in the Blitz is truly described as iconic. But perhaps the most extraordinary is Salisbury, not just for its undeniable beauty…
THE early autumn exhibition at Make, Hauser & Wirth’s gallery in Bruton High Street, celebrates the remarkable career and puppet creations of Lyndie Wright, who has been dedicated to the art of puppetry for 65 years. The Make show, The Curious Art of Puppetry, features an extraordinary collection of original puppet creations crafted at Lyndie…