SOME years ago we visited a remote castle in Scotland, as a possible choice for a big family holiday. Within minutes of entering the ancient stone tower we were chilled and alarmed, wrapped in a an insidious sense of misery that only grew worse as we went through more rooms. Later, we learned that for…

PLAYWRIGHT Tabitha Hayward, who is about to start a new job at London’s famous Royal Court, was surprised when she left her Dorset home for Oxford University and the working world to find that the hill forts she regarded as ordinary landscape features were not widespread across the country. Now she has returned “home” to…

FIONA Ross’s production of Romeo and Juliet for the students at Arts University Bournemouth in their Palace Court Theatre pares the action and the story back to its bones, convincingly underlining the timelessness of Shakespeare’s greatest love story. With daily news full of knife fights and teenage deaths, this is another story of gangs and…

THIS new musical production of one of the world’s most popular stories, with seven new numbers by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe happily blending with the Sherman Brothers iconic original score, is big, bold and beautiful. It has lavish sets with costumes to match, by Bob Crowley, that change with the precision of co-director Matthew…

KAZUO Ishiguro’s 2005 science fiction novel, one of several descriptions of this thought-provoking work, is not the sort of bedside book you pick up and casually read a few pages before going off to sleep. With its frightening images of the lives of children cloned for the sole reason of providing human organs in order…

YOU would do well to come to this the second stage play version of an Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus novel never having read any of his 25 Rebus novels, or seen the character depicted on TV by John Hannah and/or Ken Stott. If you have done either of these you probably have a very firm…

HAVING been taught that it is rude to discuss a lady’s age in public, and not much better a gentleman’s, it is with a little reluctance that I say that the two leads, Felicity Kendal and Matthew Kelly, who carry the greatest burden in Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall’s expert adaption of Eduardo De Filippo’s…

LUCY Kirkwood’s powerful play The Welkin had its premiere at the National Theatre early in 2020, where its intended run was cut short by the first COVID lockdown. Now the students of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, directed by Emma Callander, have taken on the play and are performing it at the Weston Studio at…

Bath Mozartfest 2024 – take 2 PLAYWRIGHT, composer and actor Noel Coward and American entertainer Danny Kaye come to mind when summarising the 34th Bath Mozart Fest. Coward was a great one for finding the right venue for his plays, sometimes delaying an opening night until the right theatre was available, and festival artistic director…

THE 11th Celebrate Voice festival in Salisbury was another record-breaker, founder and artistic director Lynsey Docherty (covered in a black “flashers” mac) told the packed audience at the final event, the last performance of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love at the Guildhall. Lynsey (pictured right)  was all ready (under the voluminous raincoat) to go on…