…. stow the chairs – and it’s off to the show THOSE glorious few days of warm sun before Easter were the perfect precursor to the open air theatre season, which will this year get under way in May and bring comedies, tragedies, classics and new stories to audiences across the country until mid-September. While…
CRUEL Intentions, The 90s Musical, comes to Bath Theatre Royal on its first UK tour, direct from the West End, from Wednesday 23rd to Saturday 26th April. The show is based on the film of the same name, and is inspired by Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the infamous epistolary novel about sex, social mores and cruel…
DAN Brown’s 2003 mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code is a worldwide best seller – 80 million copies were sold in the first six years – as well as the cause of international controversy, criticised as a historically and scientifically inaccurate attack on the Catholic church. It was filmed in 2006, again delighting audiences…
WINDROSE Rural Media Trust has a new team at the helm, fir the first time in the more than 40 years since it was founded by Trevor Bailey, who has retired but will remain as a trustee. Three women have taken over the charity, which works across Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire on educational, archival and…
THE National Trust’s Holnicote estate on Exmoor was one of three finalists for this year’s UK River Prize awards, which are organised by the River Restoration Centre. The Trust’s pioneering project adopted an innovative American “Stage Zero” technique to restore a section of the River Aller creating new wetlands to benefit both people and wildlife….
IF you haven’t yet seen the BAFTA and Oscar-winning Conclave, there are several opportunities with Moviola in April, when it is one of the most in-demand films, on screen at Codford (Woolstore Theatre), Westbury-sub-Mendip, Winterslow, Beaminster (Public Hall), Hawkchurch, Norton sub Hamdon, Winsford, Shepton Montague, Hanging Langford, Wookey Hole, Motcombe, Beer, Castle Cary (Caryford Community…
THE Arborealists, a group of professional artists – painters, print-makers, photographers and sculptors, united by a love of trees – have their first Dorset exhibition at the Market Yard gallery at Sculpture by the Lakes, the atmospheric watery sculpture park near Tincleton, a few miles east of Dorchester, until 19th April. This is The Arborealists’…
YOU don’t often hear the phrase “protest singer” these days, but the tradition – which stretches back for many years in unions and traditional working communities, and was reinvented by the folk singers of the 1960s – lives on in Reg Meuross, the Crewkerne-based singer-songwriter whose work has always championed the issues of the day,…
HOT on the heels of their triumphs with 2024’s The Drowsy Chaperone, Milborne Port Opera moves into new territory again this year, with a production of the musical version of The Witches of Eastwick, on stage at the Village Hall from 23rd to 26th April. Most people know the story, adapted from John Updike’s 1984…
THE last pitched battle fought on English soil took place at Sedgemoor – the aftermath, which included the infamous “Bloody Assuzes” of Judge Jeffreys, is the subject of the major spring exhibition at the Museum of Somerset. Remembering the Monmouth Rebellion will be on show until 6th July. The exhibition is part of the museum’s…
Old English roses and a menu of local food – a new team at the Walled Garden, Mells ONE of the most beautiful “secret” gardens in our area, The Walled Garden at Mells re-opened on 2nd April with a Somerset menu, a focus on old English roses, a new chef cooking local produce and the…
A STARRY film adaptation of Raynor Winn’s best-selling memoir The Salt Path is to open at Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre as part of its national release on Friday 30th May. The film stars Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs as Raynor and her husband Moth who, following his terminal diagnosis and the devastating loss of their…
DORSET Opera Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary at Bryanston School’s Coade Hall this year, following its move to Blandford from its original home at Sherborne School. This year’s festival will run from 22nd to 26th July, and will include two formal dinners in Bryanston House. The opera programme is thrilling, with Verdi’s cruel but musically…
THE big spring exhibition at the Somerset Rural Life Museum at Glastonbury, on until 8th June, is Strength and Resilience: Somerset Women in the Second World War, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, by focusing on the lives of four women who played their part during the conflict and…
TRIBUTES have poured in for Tanya Bruce-Lockhart, former director of Beaminster Festival and founder and director of Bridport Literary Festival, who died suddenly on Saturday 5th April at the age of 81. A familiar and much-loved figure in both Bridport and Beaminster, Tanya had been at the heart of cultural life in West Dorset since…
PICTURE the scene – Lady Bracknell and her niece, Gwendolyn, are dressed for tea, in their best gowns … elegant, beautiful, utterly impractical, but a triumph of lace, chiffon and the designer’s art. A new exhibit at the National Trust’s Kingston Lacy House near Wimborne, gives visitors a chance to see a magnificent example of…
WE are quite used to opera singers taking a break after singing a strenuous role, but when two leading ladies are announced for a musical, you presume that they will alternate week by week during a year-long tour, which started earlier this month in Sunderland and ends on 4th April 2026 in Leeds. After watching…
OVER the last quarter of a century, performance poet Luke Wright has built up a reputation as one of Britain’s most popular and entertaining performers, winning a host of awards along the way. His 2025 tour continues at The Theatre Shop at Clevedon on 24th April, Poole Lighthouse on 15th May and East Quay at…
A STORY inspired by Sir Michael Morpurgo’s own family history is brought to the stage by adapter Simon Reade and the adventurous team at Cirencester’s Barn Theatre, from Friday 28th March to Saturday 10th May. In the Mouth of the Wolf is the true story of Morpurgo’s uncles in the Second World War. That war…
The three largest theatres in the south-west region, Southampton Mayflower (seating 2,300) Bristol Hippodrome (1,951), and Plymouth Theatre Royal (1,320), are the places to see the big touring musicals, and their 2025 schedule includes major national tours. The Mayflower will stage Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop American history musical Hamilton (pictured below) until 26th April, and Cameron…
ASK many people which is their favourite English city … the answer will often be Bath. It’s hardly surprising – a pearl of fine Georgian stone houses, terraces, circuses, crescents and streets, set in a spectacular valley, with some of the country’s finest Roman remains and a history of art, culture and literature. A roll call…
DORSET’s Artsreach rural touring charity has been working on a unique collaboration with the Anglo-Chilean band Quimantú and community singers from several Dorset choirs to perform Misa de los Mineros, The Miners’ Mass, in a series of concerts across the county. The Surtierra tour started in Blandford on 4th April and continues on 11th May…