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…
ONE of the most highly-praised and popular television shows of all time, Alan Bleasdale’s BAFTA-winning Boys From The Blackstuff visits Bath in James Graham’s powerful stage adaptation, from Tuesday 25th February to Saturday 1st March. Directed by Kate Wasserberg, the show brings to the stage the 1980s Liverpool of Chrissie, Loggo, George, Dixie and Yosser…
FOR all its psychological trappings, this is at heart a true whodunit thriller, as five characters have reason and motive to be the killer. In true Agatha Christie style, all the clues and red herrings are laid out before us, leading us down one false trail after another. The big difference in this skilful stage…
DAVID Copperfield, Betsey Trotwood, Mr Micawber, Peggotty, Steerforth, Uriah Heep … it is a roll call of some of the most famous characters in literature, all from the same novel by the multi-talented story-teller David Copperfield. And local actors of all ages have a chance to be involved when Bath Theatre Royal stages its David…
IT would be hard to imagine two artists whose work is more different than landscape painter Anthony Garratt and wood engraver Howard Phipps, but their very different styles – Garratt’s massive colour-saturated canvases and Phipps’ intricately detailed tiny prints – are oddly complementary. Both are artists at the top of their game – and they…
IT may be some years before Bond fans get another film to enjoy, but at Cirencester’s adventurous Barn Theatre, you can enjoy the challenges of casting the world’s most famous spy. As Jordan Walter, writer of A Role to Die For, puts it, “It’s no laughing matter.” But that’s what audiences are doing as the…
DORSET-based writer Ed Viney’s play Pot Licker is on a tour of Dorset with dates in Exeter and Bath, having its premiere at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre, where it first saw light at a new writing event, on Wednesday and Thursday 12th and 13th March. The play looks at what happens when three teachers decide…
WHAT do we do with the kids? It’s the perennial school holiday question, and as usual, Dorset’s rural touring charity, Artsreach, has some fun events to fill a few colourful, crafty, musical hours. Sam O’ Shanty has lived his whole life at sea, ever since he first stowed aboard ship when he was just a…
A SOLO play that tells the true story of a young performer’s struggles with health problems, The Magical Screentest, comes to the Marine Theatre at Lyme Regis on Wednesday 19th February. This is the disarmingly honest self-portrait of aspiring actor Isobel Jeffery: the inspiring tale of how she has worked to overcome learning disabilities and…
SINGER-songwriter Cole Stacey comes to St Michael & All Angels Church, Stockland in East Devon, on Friday 21st February, at 7pm, to launch his debut album, Postcards From Lost Places. The Dartmoor-based musician has a repertoire that ranges from British folk and 80s pop to spoken word and ambient electronics. With explorations into traditional song…