CHRISTMAS isn’t a time when we want to think about politics and pinched purses, but if you live in the Yeovil catchment and one of your favourite festive treats has been a visit to the Octagon pantomime (moved last year to Westlands), you won’t have missed the fact that the Arts Council part funded plans…
THE prolific American writer Jack Sharkey first published The Murder Room in 1977, and now, almost 40 years on, Yeovil’s Civic Players have brought it to their avid audience. It should have happened back in 2020, but the pandemic got in the way, just weeks before the opening night. Thankfully, director Andrew Meadows and his…
BACK in 2018, Salisbury Playhouse came up with a national award-winning version of Beauty and the Beast, which remains in my memory as the finest new pantomime version of a favourite story ever – and I really have been to a few hundred pantos in my time – oh yes I have! Now, after all…
IF you are inexperienced in the ways of children … when a little girl in the audience leaps into her parents’s arms seeking safety and comfort, after Nigel (Joey Hickman), one of Hansel and Gretel’s parents, driven crazy by lack of food, tries to eat some of the audience … you could well question whether…
THERE’s just a handful of seats available at performances of A Christmas Carol – the Musical at Frome’s Merlin Theatre, starting on Friday 6th December. After last year’s sell out production of ELF, the ambitious and enterprising Merlin Theatre Productions company has chosen the Broadway version of the Dickens classic for its 2024 show, and…
Marley was dead, to begin with … NO matter how grumpy Scrooge is, you can be sure he will be bringing smiles and festive joy when he makes his annual visits during December – and this year there is a variety of Christmas Carols on tour in Dorset and the surrounding area, starting with The…
IF you really can’t hack the Behind You and Oh No She Isn’t Christmas entertainment predictability, Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov studio has the perfect amtidote to panto-mania with a new production of Jeeves Takes Charge, running from Friday 6th December to Saturday 4th January. Sam Harrison plays all 22 roles in this clever solo retelling…
THE long and complicated journey of an ancient violin continues – this week Lev’s Violin (the instrument and its story) is in Dorset for dates with Artsreach, including Shipton Gorge village hall on Thursday 5th December, West Stafford hall on Friday 6th and Chetnole village hall on Saturday 7th, all starting at 7.30pm. Former bandmates…
IF it’s Christmas at South Petherton’s David Hall you can be sure that St Agnes Fountain will be on the calendar, returning for their much-anticipated annual visit to the Somerset venue, this year on Saturday 14th December at 8pm. Since their first get together, to record the eponymous St Agnes Fountain album in 2001, the…
THE latest manifestation of the Sasha Regan company’s hilariously entertaining all-male Pirates is in Bath this week, complete with its almost-all-new cast of daughters, policemen and gentlemen of the sea. The 17-strong company, along with the phenomenal Giannis Giannopoulos at the piano, bring out all of WS Gilbert’s satire and invention, with (as is traditional) a…