AFTER months of lockdowns and cancellations, it’s a joy to see local dramatic society members back on stage doing their thing, and this is the time that the amateurs start their pantomimes. At their Bell Street home in Shaftesbury the company has chosen a new mash-up version of Little Red Riding Hood, written by Tracy…
WHEN you see the name Disney above the title, and original music and lyrics come from Richard M and Robert B Sherman, the brothers responsible for the music in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a long list of Disney classics including Mary Poppins, your mind almost automatically registers a big, spectacularly staged musical. While Michael…
MARK Rylance first came across the story of the Hungarian Dr Semmelweis many years ago, and before the outbreak of Covid-19 he and his friend, Bristol Old Vic artistic director Tom Morris, were working on bringing his life to the stage. It didn’t seem likely that Rylance would be declaiming the diktats of Boris –…
Borodin In the Steppes of Central Asia Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2 Rimsky-Korsakov Symphonic Suite / Symphony No 2 ‘Antar’ Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amyn Merchant Kirill Karabits: Conductor Alexander Malofeev Piano THIS was my second sampling of the BSO’s admirable streaming service, on which you are able to watch concerts live at home…
THE best known, and most oft adapted for stage, screen, radio and TV, of all Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, there would be few members of any audience who would not know the story of The Hound of the Baskervilles. And that knowledge is certain to add to the fun of watching Steven…
THERE’S something that professional musicians sometimes describe as “the tyranny of the dots”, and I was reminded of it during Nell Leyshon’s multi-layered play, Folk, now on at Hampstead Theatre Studio. Set, as is so much of Leyshon’s best work, in her native Somerset, it centres on the lives of two sisters. One of them,…
Mrs Delgado, Mike Bartlett’s isolational, observational solo play, opened in Oxford in December 2021, and comes to Bath in the very week that the nation has been focused on the rules that accompanied the arrival of Covid-19 and how we kept them. Set in a small section of an urban street, it’s all about those…
LITERATURE, mythology and the stage are peppered with depictions of male friendship, and undoubtedly it can be heroic and special. But female friendship is also special, and much less shown. Di and Viv and Rose is just that – a play about female friendship which looks at this relationship with kind but honest eyes, unflinchingly…
THIS production, devised by the company under the direction of Julia Head, looks at Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy from the view of young people living in 2022. Any traditional interpretations making full use of the poetry within the words are cast aside in order to emphasise the raw emotions, frustrations and deep passions within the story….
DECONSTRUCTION has become a bit of a fad this century – specially among chefs and playwrights. Mostly I find menus offering deconstructed trifle, Black Forest Gateau, cheesecakes and chicken pies prove that the original classic was famous just because it was “constructed” to go together. Theatrically it has been a more successful enterprise. Brilliant re-workings…