SUSIE Dent, well-known from her television quiz appearances as the ultimate walking dictionary, is as entertaining as she is erudite. She is currently on a national tour, coming to Dorchester Arts at Thomas Hardye School theatre on Sunday 8th March, at 3.30pm. Following her previous hit show, The Secret Life of Words, Britain’s best-loved wordsmith…
FARNHAM Maltings, much-loved on rural touring circuits, returns to Dorset and Devon with a new play, touring the region until 22nd March. All For Your Delight is a celebration of the world of variety, with a dazzling mix of comedy, songs and games – plus some spectacular roller skating! The show is with Devon’s Villages…
AFTER the mysterious disappearance of a world-famous magician, the great Sherlock Holmes is called in to investigate in Holmes and Watson: The Curious Case of The Masked Magician comes to Dorchester Corn Exchange on Sunday 15th March at 2.30. It’s 1906 – the Golden Age of Magic. The Masked Magician bestrides London’s world of magic…
TWO great artists met their deaths by gun-shot. Vincent died in 1890. John died in 1980. What might have happened had the two great artists met? Discover a possible answer in When Vincent met John at Bridport Arts Centre on Saturday 7th March. Vincent van Gogh was a 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among…
SALISBURY International Arts Festival, running from 16th to 27th June, takes two very different looks at the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet, with a community production of Shakespeare’s play, from 24th May to 7th June, and a dance version, Lost Dog’s Juliet & Romeo, which imagines this enduring tale of love turned upside down….
ICELANDIC cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir, with accompanist Antoine Préat, joins Concerts in the West’s for the March series, starting at 11.30am on Friday 13th March at Bridport Arts Centre, followed by Ilminster Arts Centre that evening at 7.30pm and Crewkerne Dance House on Saturday 14th at 7.30. The duo will play a programme of cello…
ONE of the reasons that Adrian Brendel has slipped so seamlessly into the charismatic shoes of the late Amelia Freedman as artistic director of Bath’s Mozart and Bach Fests, is that he, as he pointed out when introducing The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra’s splendid closing concert in the Abbey, he is fully aware what a…
THE south-west of England has a particularly rich heritage of community plays – Dorchester has mounted seven, a record number. Increasingly, large theatres are commissioning plays for a vast cast of performers, usually with a professional production team and an amateur cast keen for the chance to make friends and perform on big stages, with…
SOME music just tugs at your heartstrings, no matter how often you hear it. A couple of bars of Puccini’s La Boheme and I am transported back to my very early childhood … my mother singing, or, a bit later when we had a radiogram, to Renata Tebaldi’s voice recorded at La Scala in 1951….
THE new exhibition at The Art Stable at Gold Hill Organic Farm, Child Okeford, features the work of 20th century painter and film-maker Humphrey Jennings and his daughter Charlotte. The work is on show in the main gallery and upstairs until 21st March. Best-known as a documentary film-maker, Humphrey Jennings (1907 to 1950) was described…