A RARELY performed Noel Coward comedy is coming to Bath Theatre Royal – The Marquise, starring Juliet Aubrey, Simon Shepherd and Tristan Gemmill, is on a national tour and will be at Bath from Tuesday 16th to Saturday 20th June. This romantic comedy, originally set in 18th-century France and now given a 1930s updating, was…
BADGER’S Drift will get a bit of a break from homicide when the curtain comes down on Midsomer Murders at Bath on Saturday 14th June – but not for long. The success of this first staging of the popular TV series on its opening UK tour, which started in November 2025, means it has 14 more…
JULIUS Caesar is centre stage at Grange Opera Festival, where Sarah Brady (pictured) captures the magnetic power of Cleopatra. Christian Curnyn, well-known to local opera lovers from the former Iford Opera Festival (near Bath), conducts his Early Opera Company to accompany the singers, led by countertenor Tim Mead, as Caesar. One of Handel’s most popular…
CHALKE History Festival, the UK’s leading celebration of history, will return from 22nd to 28th June to bring the past vividly to life through a rich programme of top-class talks, wide-ranging discussions and dynamic living history experiences. The line-up includes classicist Mary Beard, radio presenter and journalist James Naughtie, commentator Anne Applebaum, former White House…
MATILDA Temperley, an accomplished professional photographer who now runs Somerset Cider Brandy and Burrow Hill Cider, the businesses her father Julian founded, is the new patron of Somerset Art Works. This year the visual arts festival in September will be celebrating Somerset’s rich history and diversity under the theme of “cultural connections.” Matilda knows the…
A PAINTING by John Constable, which has been unseen in Salisbury for more than 60 years, is finally going on show at the Salisbury Museum in a landmark moment for the institution. View of Salisbury from Harnham Ridge, a major discovery in the artist’s catalogue that has been hidden away in a private collection since…
TWO films dominated the awards season this year – and they could hardly be more different. Both are among the most popular for Moviola screenings in this early summer period. Hamnet has been and remains the most-requested, but Paul Thomas Anderson’s action-comedy-thriller film One Battle After Another is also winning village audiences across the region….
A NEW play by Stephanie Dale, writer of two of Dorset’s successful community plays, uncovers stories of some of the remarkable women from Dorset’s past. Unearthed has its premiere with Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th July, followed by two more performances at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre on Friday…
A TINY bird that is easy to miss, but which has a distinctive song, is back from the brink of extinction with nearly 100 pairs at RSPB Arne this year. The Amber listed Dartford Warbler suffered from a population crash in the 1960s, leaving only a few pairs in Dorset and the species on the…
OPERA Anywhere is touring with a delightful new adaptation of Mozart’s satire Cosi Fan Tutte, making three stops from 19th June to 12th July in the south west. The company will be performing the wickedly funny “Thus do all women” story of two flirtatious young women, two jealous (and rather stupid) young men, an old…
HISTORIC performance duo GreenMatthews are touring arts venues with their new show, Midsummer Revels, with local dates at the Museum of Rural Life at Glastonbury on 17th June and the Corn Exchange at Dorchester on Sunday 21st June. Chris Green and Sophie Matthews are modern-day balladeers, specialising in telling stories through song, and playing a…
SINGER-songwriter Sarah McQuaid is touring again, featuring songs from the new album which she will be recording at the studio at her home in the far west of Cornwall. She will be at Parracombe Village Hall on 19th June and at Torquay’s Fougou Music venue on 2nd July. “Settle down, and I’ll try to make…
“THE ship is in her trim; the merry wind blows fair from land*” – exactly the message you need as you’ve packed the picnic basket, stowed the chairs in the car, checked your tickets on the phone (?) and set off for an evening in the open air, surrounded by trees and hedgerows, all ready…
JUST a year on since the first beavers were released into the wild at Studland, the natural eco engineers have been transforming woodland, dramatically reshaping part of the local landscape and turning a previously dense area of woodland into a thriving wildlife-rich wetland. The pair have built an extensive dam which has slowed the flow…
WHEN Laura Wade decided to rework W Somerset Maughan’s highly successful 1926 play The Constant Wife and look at the story through modern eyes, whilst keeping the same storyline she based her script on Maughan’s concept rather than using the original text. Lyric Hammersmith’s associate director Nicholai La Barrie, who directs this joint production with…
WHAT makes chalk streams special? Running through Wiltshire and Hampshire are some of the most beautiful rivers in the country – perhaps in the world. They don’t cut through dramatic scenery or spectacular gorges, they run quietly through wildlife-rich tree and grass-lined banks. The water rises deep under the chalk downs that are the mountain ranges…
CRIME and punishment, deportation and the consequences of artistic deprivation are all big news at the moment, in a way they perhaps weren’t in 1991 when Timberlake Wertenbaker wrote her iconic political drama Our Country’s Good. She was inspired by visits to Wormwood Scrubs prison, and the effects that exposure to theatre had on long-term…
THOMAS Hardy was famously shy, even occasionally slipping out of the back door when people arrived at the front of Max Gate, his home in Dorchester. Now the National Trust has replanted part of a hedge in front of the house, which formerly shielded the writer from prying eyes. Ahead of Thomas Hardy’s birthday on…
SIX adult performers Richard Hurst, Tessa Kadler, Rebecca Thornhiil, Adam Stafford, Ryan Lay, and Esther Niles brought a considerable amount of dramatic, vocal and dance talent to the roles of (respectively) Miss Trunchbull, Miss Honey, Mrs and Mr Wormwood, Rudolpho and Mrs Phelps, and thoroughly deserved the warm reception they received when taking their final…
ONE of this country’s most distinguished and critically acclaimed actresses, Dame Harriet Walter is coming to the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, for a fund-raising evening on Sunday 14th June. A star of stage and screen for 40 years, Dame Harriet has a long and illustrious relationship with both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National…
ANYONE who has visited the great Tisbury tithe barn, now home to the Messums West contemporary art gallery, will understand why the word “cathedral” comes to mind – and the new installation, Forest Cathedral, takes this as its inspiration, creating a powerful experience for visitors to the 700-year old building, with its awe-inspiring, soaring timber…
ROGER Fry, painter and member of the Bloomsbury Group, is celebrated in a new exhibition at the Museum of Somerset,Taunton, on until 4th July. A Life in Art: Roger Fry is a major new exhibition exploring the life, work and influence of one of the most important figures in 20th century British art. The exhibition…