THE new show at the Barn Theatre is all about the difficulty of finding a new James Bond at the same time as the legacy of the founders comes under threat from franchising corporate takeover. By the time I got to Cirencester to catch up with the production, news had just been announced in the…
FOR all its psychological trappings, this is at heart a true whodunit thriller, as five characters have reason and motive to be the killer. In true Agatha Christie style, all the clues and red herrings are laid out before us, leading us down one false trail after another. The big difference in this skilful stage…
ONE Anglican archbishop has already resigned after questions about his failure to investigate and act on reports of abuse within the church. Many other leading church figures, in both the Church of England and the Catholic Church, have been embroiled in allegations of abuses dating back decades and cover-ups that have continued. The General Synod…
ADOLESCENCE is probably the most difficult period in anyone’s life. Ideas of advice on how to handle this period may change and some psychiatrists even believe you can by-pass it and go straight from childhood to adulthood. In an era where self-examination is encouraged far more than it was in previous times, and in which…
OSCAR Hammerstein II, Jewish from his father’s side, wrote the lyrics to one of the most politically and socially telling songs of the 20th century for the musical South Pacific. You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught is often overlooked in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon, but in 13 lines (the last two verses are omitted…
IF you buy a vintage Rolls Royce motor car in good condition, you do not immediately take it to the nearest garage and have the engine re-tuned, and completely overhaul the paintwork and interior …. perhaps even going to the extent of replacing the iconic Spirit of Ecstasy statue on the front of the bonnet!…
THE three Ghost stories that Dr Goodman, Professor of Parapsychology, uses to illustrate his lecture to the audience on the power of the paranormal have been greeted by some people as being “harrowing, 80 minutes of nightmare thrills”, and by others as being “as substantial and troubling as the fake ectoplasm manifested by a dodgy…
SOME of the most recognisable characters ever to be created on TV appeared in one of the 64 episodes (plus Christmas specials) of Only Fools and Horses. And as each new one, faithfully and accurately recreated, first appeared in this musical adaptation, they raised a cheer and a laugh. How tempting it therefore must have…
EVERY year when the pantomime season comes around, friends ask “how CAN you bear to see so many again?” and I tell them, very seriously and hoping not to sound too preachy or pompous, “Well, it is the first theatre show that most people will see, and that is the moment that they will first…
IT is more than 60 years since Robert Bolt’s play A Man For All Seasons became a hit in London, on Broadway and as a film that garnered many awards and made an international star of Paul Scofield – who also played the protagonist, Sir Thomas More, on stage. Now, in 2025, the glittering, paranoid,…