ALL of us can remember where we were and what we were doing when we saw the film of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Centre on 11th September 2001. It is an indelible image of a moment that changed all our lives. But for the residents of a remote community living on…
MENACE is one of those things for which delicate audience members now need a trigger warning, but back in 1957, when one-time actor and burgeoning playwright David Baron/Harold Pinter started to craft his oeuvre, it was something he all but introduced to the English stage. Sheer terror is commonplace on television and film, but on…
FOR years, visitors to England, particularly from the USA, have headed for London to see “a show” – apparently whatever it might be. That description of musical theatre has caught on, and now the popularity of the big musical spectacle, often an adaptation of a hit film, draws the crowds to the West End. Sometimes…
IT is hard to imagine a more perfect setting for an evening of beautiful dance and fine food than the ancient walled garden at Hatch House at Tisbury. Covent Garden Dance Company this year celebrated the 15th anniversary of Ballet Under The Stars – sometimes known as the Glyndebourne of dance – with a programme…
IN 1987, the late Bill Kenwright sent a musical version of Blood Brothers out on a nationwide tour which, combined with West End runs, turned what had originally been a school play into a show with a cult following that has kept it in production to the present day. For a musical it has a…
AT the final destination for a production that finishes, after a strenuous six month tour, in Bristol on Saturday 3rd August, this presentation shows no signs of running out of steam. In fact, the three-strong Le Navet Bête, (Nick Bunt, Al Dunn and Matt Freeman), drive this tale of three itinerant actors trying to devise…
DORSET Opera Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and the company, led by artistic director Roderick Kennedy, decided not only to commission an opera to celebrate the golden jubilee, but for this new work to be a truly Dorset production. So composer Paul Carr was asked to create an opera based on Thomas Hardy’s…
DORSET Opera is celebrating its 50th birthday in style, with two spectacular productions on the stage of the Coade Hall at Bryanston, 20 miles but light years away from its first opera staged at Sherborne School in 1974. The big story of this anniversary year is the commission of a new opera based on a…
JEFF Clarke has quite a reputation among opera lovers in the south west, nourished by his many memorable and hilarious productions performed in the Harold Peto cloister at Iford Manor. Now that that venue is no longer available, fans are delighted to be able to follow his Opera della Luna shows at Bath’s Theatre Royal,…
THE volume and warmth of the reception afforded to London City Ballet as they returned to touring to Bath’s Theatre Royal after an absence of nearly 30 years, is testament to the way that ballet, dance and movement have recaptured the imagination, particularly of younger theatre-goers, over the past decade. Harold King’s once enormously popular…