ANNE-Marie Casey’s vivid, energetic and passionate adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic story Little Women comes to Salisbury for the first showings of the second leg of its 2025 tour, with a largely new cast and all the atmosphere and delight of its Pitlochry debut back in 2022. A judging colleague of mine says nothing…
WE live in a time of advertising slogans and clichés, like “bucket list” and “best self” and “soundtrack of our lives”, and it can be infuriating. But the last of those really can’t be better applied than the opening bars of Henry Wood’s Barwick Green – more familiarly known as The Archers theme. It is…
THE attention of new generations of music lovers has been drawn to Woody Guthrie with the success of the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and it is fortuitous timing for Somerset-based singer and songwriter Reg Meuross, whose brilliant new song cycle, Fire and Dust, was ready at much the same time. The release of the…
LEGENDARY folk singer Christine Collister, one of the great stars of the folk music scene for 40 years, has a new show featuring a collection of songs called Children of the Sea Over her four decades in folk music, Christine has released 24 albums, a DVD celebrating 20 years in the business and an acclaimed…
VAN Gogh’S Wheat Field with Cypresses positively sings of late summer – an appropriate image for a concert that celebrates the season. To the Idle Hill of Summer: Memories of the Season will be performed by pianist Clare Sydenham, with narrator David Hindley, at St Mary’s Church, Bruton, on Sunday 21st September at 3pm. The…
MANY intellectuals pick over and dissect JM Barrie’s fantasy fable Peter Pan, just as they continue to do with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland – and find dark hidden meanings within the text. The American writer, composer and lyricist Jim Steinman, sometimes described as the Wagner of rock music, certainly found some very dark, violent…
SAMUEL Beckett’s black comedy masterpiece Endgame comes to the stage of Bath’s Ustinov Studio from 4th September to 4th October. The new production is directed by Lindsay Posner, and stars Douglas Hodge and Mathew Horn as Hamm and Clov, with Selina Cadell and Clive Francis as the wildly eccentric parents. In a bare room, Hamm,…
TWO remarkable teachers are at the heart of the most in-demand films for September, as Moviola begins its autumn season of taking the best contemporary and classic cinema to village halls and community centres across the region. Leading the field are Mr Burton, the acclaimed portrait of the teacher who supported and inspired the great…
THERE was a world premiere at Strode Theatre in Street on Saturday, but one that arrived without fanfare and played out to a sadly small, but wildly enthusiastic audience. Baroque opera lends itself to fun interpretation, and for 40 years, ever since Nick Hytner’s indelible Xerxes at ENO, directors have included quirky elements to inventive…
BLACK Hound Productions was formed in 2016 at Frome, by a group of young friends who had met in various productions at the Merlin Theatre. Now the company comes back to its home theatre with three performances of at the Edge, a new play co-written by BHP artistic director Patrick Withey and writer Melissa…