THE third Shaftesbury Festival of Baroque takes place at the arts centre, St Peter’s Church, St James’s Church and other venues from 20th to 26th January. The programme ranges from film to dance to a “battle” of 17th century playwrights. Professional musicians from the region and beyond (even Cumbria) will be taking part in this…
DORSET folk musician Alastair Braidwood is leading several folk events in Dorchester over the weekend 9th to 11th January, starting with an evening of European folk dancing at the Brownsword Hall at Poundbury on Friday from 7pm. The weekend is a celebration of folk music and traditional customs with something for everyone, whatever their age…
BATH Festivals has announced some of the highlights of next year’s international music festival, with tickets for five concerts released early – a perfect post Christmas gift for the music-lover in your life! The international music festival will run from Saturday 30th May to Sunday 7th June, and the first of the newly released events…
SHUTE Festival, a celebration of books, ideas and music, based in the little village near Honiton, began in 2016, but now, at the end of its tenth year, the organisers said goodbye. In their pre-Christmas announcement Sam Knights and Bijan Omrani say: “It is hard to believe that a decade has gone by since we…
IN 1880, a famous (and frequently censored) Italian political satirist, Carlo Collodi, created a story about a poor woodcarver who made a wooden boy puppet as a companion for his old age. That puppet, Pinocchio, wanted to be a real boy, but he had to contend with a nose that grew every time he told a…
ALL I want for Christmas is … a good murder mystery! And if that comes with a generous dose of laughter all the better. Strange creatures that we are, there is apparently nothing we enjoy more than dead bodies piling up in a splendid country house, crumbling castle or remote island hideaway. Agatha Christie was…
PANTOMIMES come in many different guises – glitzy and heavy with celebrities (some of whom you may have heard of), beautifully costumed with lavish sets, clever and funny, warm-hearted, full of local jokes and music catering to every taste from grandparents to toddlers … Some have a special place in their community, and that is…
IF pantomime is all about larger than life traditional characters, audience participation, local references, current memes (of course 6-7 is everywhere this year), love, goodies, baddies, singing and dancing, lots of great songs and a happy ending, then Poole Lighthouse is the place to go this Christmas. Chris Jarvis, the man behind the Poole panto…
COMPANIES across the FTR core area have taken the top awards in this year’s Rose Bowl contest, and leading the way was Claudia Pepler’s astonishing production of Come From Away (pictured right) at the Merlin Theatre in Frome in July, which took the Bristol Evening Post award for best musical production. Sarah Nias (right) won…
THOUGHT the dastardly Captain Hook had met his watery fate at the end of Peter Pan’s adventures? … think again. Perhaps unsurprisingly he found a way to stay alive in the water at the end of the plank he was forced to walk, and, after desolate years of fury and plotting, HE’S BACK! And when…