The Arts Section

A 90s take on a classic black comedy

CRUEL Intentions, The 90s Musical, comes to Bath Theatre Royal on its first UK tour, direct from the West End, from Wednesday 23rd to Saturday 26th April. The show is based on the film of the same name, and is inspired by Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the infamous epistolary novel about sex, social mores and cruel…

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The Da Vinci Code, Salisbury Playhouse

DAN Brown’s 2003 mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code is a worldwide best seller – 80 million copies were sold in the first six years – as well as the cause of international controversy, criticised as a historically and scientifically inaccurate attack on the Catholic church. It was filmed in 2006, again delighting audiences…

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The Da Vinci Code at Salisbury

ONE of the 21st century’s biggest selling thrillers, The Da Vinci Code, is on stage at Salisbury Playhouse until Saturday 3rd May in a dramatic and technically impressive production, directed by Chelsea Walker, with a script adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel from Dan Brown’s 2003 novel. Professor Robert Langdon and fellow cryptologist Sophie…

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A new era for Windrose

WINDROSE Rural Media Trust has a new team at the helm, fir the first time in the more than 40 years since it was founded by Trevor Bailey, who has retired but will remain as a trustee. Three women have taken over the charity, which works across Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire on educational, archival and…

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Easter workshops for young people in Chippenham

A SERIES of creative workshops for young people is being run over the Easter holidays at the Neeld Community Arts Centre in Chippenham, by Rag and Bone Arts CIC and Knapsack Productions. The project is supported by funding from the National Lottery and the government’s Million Hours scheme to help young people to work with…

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Farewell to Tanya

TRIBUTES have poured in for Tanya Bruce-Lockhart, former director of Beaminster Festival and founder and director of Bridport Literary Festival, who died suddenly on Saturday 5th April at the age of 81. A familiar and much-loved figure in both Bridport and Beaminster, Tanya had been at the heart of cultural life in West Dorset since…

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Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), Theatre Royal, Bath

I FREELY admit that I am a great fan of the wonderful BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, and the shamefully underrated Benjamin Whitrow’s study of Mr Bennet. So when I first came across this spoof of Jane Austen’s novel, I arrived full…

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Celebrating the art of travel writing

TRAVELLERS have been writing about their journeys for millennia – the Greek writer and geographer Pausanias, born in 110AD in Asia Minor, a province of the Roman Empire, is generally considered to be the world’s first travel writer. His 21st century successors have trekked to the remotest locations, into rainforests, across the Antarctic, up the…

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Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, Bristol Hippodrome

WE are quite used to opera singers taking a break after singing a strenuous role, but when two leading ladies are announced for a musical, you presume that they will alternate week by week during a year-long tour, which started earlier this month in Sunderland and ends on 4th April 2026 in Leeds. After watching…

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Gaslight, Frome Drama at the Merlin Theatre

PATRICK Hamilton’s Gaslight, first seen in 1938, has a long and powerful legacy, including a new word for the English language and legislation recognising the coercive control that is at the core of the play. Frome Drama has chosen it to launch the 2025 season, and their production at the Merlin is directed by Richard…

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