ALAN Ayckbourn has written 81 plays, and now his 2017 work, A Brief History of Women, has opened at Yeovil’s Swan Theatre, making a dozen of his works to be performed at the intimate space. And as always, it is attracting packed audiences for this first view of the play in the region. The director…

ONCE a year Bath Light Operatic Group, like Bath Operatic and Dramatic Society, throws caution to the wind and, despite not having the cushion of big commercial backing, takes over the 900-seat Theatre Royal, knowing that if they fail to attract enough customers, they will have to foot the bill themselves. Even with the large…

WHEN is door not a door? When it’s ajar. So goes the old riddle, or in the case of this 65 minute play written and performed by Joe Sellman-Leava, when a door is used as a canvas onto which video images of Joe’s father are projected. Using these images and those of a highly talented…

DANNY Robins, writer of the play 2:22, is best known for his podcasts about The Battersea Poltergeist and other ghostly topics – his theatrical interest in the supernatural started with a visit to the ever-chilling Woman in Black. His researches for 2:22 – A Ghost Story brought a host of stories to his door and…

THERE are lots of memorable characters in PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, so it’s quite some feat for three actors to bring a dozen of them to the stage in a couple of hours, but that’s what Luke Barton, Alistair Cope and Patrick Warner do in the Goodale brothers’ delightful play-within-a-play-after-Wodehouse, at Salisbury Playhouse…

FRENCH actor Jean-Philippe Daguerre’s first play Adieu Monsieur Haffmann opened in 2016 and quickly took the theatrical world by storm, winning awards and filling theatres, and was also adapted for the big screen. Now the first English language version makes its UK debut, opening at Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio where it plays until 23rd…

TEN years from conception to debut onstage, involving 140 players from all over the Bristol area, this is true community theatre. Starting with the god Orpheus being discovered by his foster parents in Leigh Woods at the same time as Eurydice is being born in Southmead Hospital, we are taken on a journey in modern…

FOR a play that was written to be presented as a school production and met with only moderate success when, (with a full music score added) it was first produced professionally, Blood Brothers was a very unlikely candidate for an Olivier Award for best new musical, become one of the West End’s longest running musicals,…

AUDIENCE tastes have changed greatly since the start of this century – the days when a successful US show, like How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, failed miserably in this country because they were too American have long gone. As a result, although the mainly British cast did not always capture the essential…

IN the pantheon of 21st century British folk music there is a vast range of styles, voices and instrumentation from the gravelly tones and often angry lyrics of Dick Gaughan to the soaring harmonies and sweet melodies of Dorset duo Ninebarrow. There is a world of difference – emotion, politics, instrumentation and attitude – between…