Laughter with strings
Wootton Fitzpaine
COMEDY classical music quartet Graffiti Classics come to Dorset in early January for a three date tour with Artsreach, the rural touring charity, starting on Thursday 8th at Wootton Fitzpaine village hall, followed by Lytchett Matravers on Friday 9th and the Corn Exchange at Blandford on Saturday 10th, all at 7.30pm.
With 16 strings, eight dancing feet and four voices, this is an electrifying and hilarious musical show. Graffiti Classics are a multi-talented string quartet who never sit down, bursting the perceived elitist boundaries of traditional classical music with an all-singing, all-dancing musical comedy show.
Wickedly funny, the group energetically leap and clown their way through an eclectic musical landscape, from Beethoven to Elvis! Graffiti Classics are on a mission: to make classical music irresistibly fun.
Festival bids farewell
Shute
SHUTE Festival, based in the little village near Honiton, began in 2016, but now, at the end of its tenth year, the organisers have said goodbye.
In their pre-Christmas announcement, Sam Knights and Bijan Omrani say: “It is hard to believe that a decade has gone by since we flung open the doors of Shute Festival at St Michael’s Church in our tiny hamlet in East Devon.
“None of us founders—Sam Knights, Bijan Omrani and Paddy Magrane—had ever run a festival before and that surely helped in taking the plunge! But we collectively loved books, ideas, performance and most of all bringing people together. Speakers came and audiences too. There are too many highlights to individually mention names but we are beyond proud of what we brought to Shute and to the surrounding area.
“We walked in the extraordinary landscapes of this area, visited our 1000 year old ancient oak a number of times, listened to musical performances from sitar to string quartets, watched films and spoke to an artist on death row in Arkansas by phone after the film about his life, saw the magnificent short film about the Macbeth performance in Shute which went so horribly wrong it made the New York Times, and engaged with hundreds of speakers and books. Each event was unique and provoked after ripples which continued far beyond.”
Sam and Bijan are bringing the festival to a close, but proud to say that the cultural environment in the area is strong: “We have a wonderful and collaborative community of organisations and individuals who are all programming in this area. Over the years we have worked with a number of these, not least our fantastic independent Archway Bookshop, the Marine Theatre, Shute Community Primary School, The Woodroffe School, St Andrews Church Colyton, Turn Lyme Green, the Alexandra Hotel and of course our gem of a medieval church St Michael’s in Shute. We are also very grateful to all of our sponsors over the years and to Postscript Books for its 2025 support. So walks, talks, film, theatre, and music will continue all around, and individually we will be supporting in any way we can.”
Chaos on Middle Earth
Dorchester
WHAT do you do if your cinema is planning to show all three Lord of the Rings films in one epic screening—but you only have the sound-tracks? You improvise … all three parts of the saga—all those hobbits and heroes, elves and orcs, dwarves and wizards. The Production Garden company brings its hilarious Parody of the Rings to Dorchester Corn Exchange on Friday 23rd January at 7.30pm.
At the local cinema, all hell breaks loose when the ushers misplace the DVDs of The Lord of the Rings trilogy—every single copy! With only the soundtracks left in hand, the team of hapless ushers must somehow improvise the entire three-film saga in front of a live audience.
Get ready for an uproarious evening of comedy, chaos and utter nonsense, as they attempt to recreate the epic tale of hobbits, elves and orcs—without any visuals, any planning or any clue what they’re doing.
Will Frodo ever make it to Mordor? Will Aragorn get crowned king? Will Gollum stop stealing the show? Will anyone even remember who’s supposed to be who?!
It’s a show that’s more fun than a barrel of hobbits—if you’ve ever wanted to see Gollum fight a battle with sound effects, or Gandalf desperately trying to remember what happens next, then you’re in for a hilarious treat.
A bolshy national treasure
Dorchester
WHEN Janet Street-Porter first hit the newspaper stands, and then the airwaves and television screens, there were many who didn’t like her accent, her voice or her take-no-prisoner attitudes. Opinionated as a fashion journalist, confrontational as a broadcaster and fearless as a campaigner, over time she has improbably become a national treasure. Now she is Off the Leash and bringing her one-woman show to Dorchester on Wednesday 21st January.
From a bolshy child with a Welsh-speaking budgie to appearances on Loose Women, Question Time, Celebrity Masterchef and more, Janet Street-Porter’s life (and language) has always been colourful.
As a broadcaster, television executive and newspaper editor she was at the forefront of some of Britain’s most enduring cultural moments. Now she finds herself with a seniors railcard and four ex-husbands. The nation’s favourite pissed-off pensioner brings comedy, tragedy and gossip in equal measure, a tour de force rant against growing old gracefully.
Often imitated but rarely equalled, in the words of her good friend Elton, “the bitch is back” and she’s coming to the theatre at Dorchester’s Thomas Hardye School.
A multi-talented musician
Villages
SARAH McQuaid is a singer-songwriter with an international background and a reputation both for the quality of her singing and her multi-instrumental musicianship. She is coming to Dorset for a short tour with Artsreach, starting on Thursday 22nd January at Shipton Gorge village hall. On Saturday 24th she is at Studland and the last concert is on Sunday 25th at Milborne St Andrew. All concerts start at 7.30pm.
Praised by Devon’s Beaford Arts rural touring organisation for her “stunning vocals … engaging narrative with the audience—an all round musical treat,” she is equally at home on acoustic and electric guitars, piano and floor tomdrum.
Born in Spain, raised in Chicago, holding dual Irish and American citizenship and now settled in rural Cornwall, Sarah’s performances are full of warmth, wit, and intimacy, and have earned her loyal followings on both sides of the Atlantic.
Bringing the eclecticism of her multi-national background to her “captivating, unorthodox songwriting” (PopMatters) and choice of material, Sarah’s work spans genres and defies categorisation.
From contemplative ballads to playful blues and atmospheric instrumentals, expect a varied, eclectic programme of original songs and folk songs, plus a few familiar covers, performed on a range of instruments.
Mining a year of political turmoil
Piddletrenthide and West Stafford
ANYONE old enough to remember the year of the Miners’ Strike will be fascinated by Danny Mellor’s Undermined, a solo show coming to Piddletrenthide Memorial Hall on Friday 23rd January and West Stafford village hall on Saturday 24th, both at 7.30pm.
Described by one reviewer as “an excellent dramatisation of an immensely important period of modern history, and a great piece of contemporary theatre in its own right … unmissable,” Mellor’s play is inspired by the accounts of miners who lived through the 1984 strike. It unfolds as a rollercoaster of emotions in a year of political turmoil.
Meet Dale, his best mate Billy, and a whole cast of characters as we follow this year-long dispute in a play which is as relevant for those who know nothing about the strike as it is for those who remember it all too well.
With one pint, one chair, one actor and a classic soundtrack, this hard-hitting work invites you to experience pints in the pub and punches on the picket line. Mellor has toured this play for more than 10 years to pubs, theatres and even the Scottish Parliament—The Scotsman described it as “a piece which is partisan but passionate”.
A century at the Electric Palace
Bridport
BRIDPORT’s beautiful and atmospheric Electric Palace begins its season celebrating a centenary of cinema on Sunday 25th January at 3pm, with Robert Wiene’s 1920 masterpiece, Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari, one of the most influential films in cinema history.
Written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, this is the quintessential work of early German Expressionist cinema. Set in a small German town during a carnival, it tells the story of Dr Caligari (Werner Krauss), a mysterious hypnotist who unveils his eerie attraction: Cesare (Conrad Veidt), a sleepwalker said to predict the future. Caligari uses Cesare to commit murders.
The film features a dark, twisted, visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique, curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.
It is a work that shocked audiences at the time, and had a massive influence on the industry, altering the course of filmmaking. With its jagged, dreamlike sets and chilling atmosphere, it redefined how stories could be told on screen, leaving an indelible mark on the evolution of horror, film noir, and gothic cinema.
At the Electric Palace, it will have live musical accompaniment by musician Hugo Max, who will perform an original score on viola.
Beauty (?) and the beast
Touring
LIVING Spit are back on tour in January with their own unique take on one of the best-loved fairytales—Beauty and the Beast. Written by co-founders, Stu McLoughlin and the late and much-missed Howard Coggins, this is a playful, updated version of the 18th century French fable, coming to three venues in Dorset, at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, on Thursday 15th, Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Friday 16th and Sturminster Newton Exchange on Saturday 17th.
Generally recognised as two of the most physically attractive performers to ever grace the British stage, one of the Living Spit duo will need all their skills, in this tale as old as time, to portray a hideous, foul-tempered beast. But which one will it be? It’s a new and hilarious take on the story that asks what it means to be truly beautiful.
The tour follows an opening month at Living Spit’s home, The Theatre Shop at Clevedon, from 8th December to 3rd January, with performances over the Christmas period also at Weston-super-Mare’s Blakehay Theatre, from 16th-30th December. On 8th January the show is at the Princess Theatre, Burnham-on-Sea, 9th-10th January at Pound Arts, Corsham, 15th January at Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, 16th January at Dorchester Corn Exchange, 17th January at Sturminster Exchange, and 22nd to 24th January at Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bedminster, Bristol.
Musical steps back in time
Drimpton and Cerne Abbas
HUGELY popular in venues of all sizes, Moscow Drug Club makes a welcome return to the Artsreach circuit with gigs at Drimpton village hall on Friday 30th January, and Cerne Abbas hall on Saturday 31st, both at 7.30pm.
These troubadours of world jazz and folk take you to a curious musical place where elements of 1930s Berlin cabaret, Latin tinge, French musette and storytelling meet.
Imagine having a few shots of vodka or brandy, staggering arm-in-arm into the darkness of an eastern European cobbled street and stumbling into a bar where Django Reinhardt and Tom Waits are having an after-hours jam with the local Tziganes.
Combining original material with songs by some of the inspirational songwriters of the mid-century, including Jaques Brel, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Eartha Kitt, a Moscow Drug Club concert is an intoxicating and intimate musical experience.
Late Rossini for new year concert
Bridport
ROSSINI is best known for his vivacious and witty operas, but he also wrote a beautiful mass, and it is this work, written when he was in his 70s, that has been chosen by the West Dorset Singers for their new year concert, on Saturday 31st January at 7pm at St Swithin’s Church, Bridport.
When Rossini composed the Petite Messe Solennelle in 1863, he referred to it as “the last mortal sin of my old age”. But it is neither small nor particularly solemn and while retaining the identity of a sacred mass, it reflects Rossini’s rich operatic background.
Rossini dedicated the piece to Countess Louise Pillet-Will and it was first performed in her private chapel with a small ensemble of voice, piano and harmonium. The music alternates between intimate passages with deeply felt faith and those that offer heartfelt and theatric drama.
The West Dorset Singers will bring this fabulous music alive under their musical director Matt Kingston, accompanied by piano, accordion and professional soloists. Tickets are available from Bridport Music Centre and online at www.ticketsource.co.uk/wds
Klezmer delights in the new year
Honiton
KLEZMER, the music of Jewish Eastern Europe and the Balkans, manages to be both haunting and poignant and infectiously energetic. Just the thing for a dark January night—join the Zeffe klezmer band at the Beehive Centre at Honiton on Saturday 31st January at 7.30pm.
This locally based band is making quite a name with its brilliant musicianship, combining the traditional Jewish klezmer that makes you want to want to dance and laugh (and sometimes cry) at the same time, with fantastic tunes from the Balkan traditions that fed and bred with klezmer.
Look forward to klezmer Khosidls and Bulgars, Roma Coceks, Bulgarian Horos and more, from the classic line-up of clarinet, fiddle, accordion and double bass (with some vocals and percussion as a bonus).
Tales from a taxi rank
Touring
THE creative ferment of Frome, Somerset’s most artistically active town, has produced a new play which draws on the writer-performer’s own experience as a taxi driver. Rank, by Dan Gaisford, is touring in January and February to Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on 29th January, Bridport Arts Centre on 30th, Poole’s Lighthouse on 31st, Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio on 2nd and 3rd February and the Bay Theatre at Weymouth College on 5th February.
The play, produced by award-winning OffPiste Theatre, is described as a dark comedy thriller which explores themes of class, gentrification, assumption and taxi driving. It had its premiere at the Merlin Theatre in Frome in November, as part of the theatre’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
The audience follows one driver’s epic encounter with a young woman and her two small children. Battling to tell his tale against the backdrop of an ever-ringing phone, it is clear he has become more involved in the lives of his passengers than he ever intended.
Drawing on his own experiences working as a taxi driver in the town, Dan moved to Frome with his parents, brother, nan, uncle, auntie and cousin to reopen the historic Griffin pub in the 80s and, after a decade away, returned to the call of home.
As Dan explains: “Actors often have to take on other work, in my case warehousing, bar work, cheese-packing etc, and my taxi driving started out in just the same way—providing great source material for character study, and anecdotes and lived experience.”
Taskmaster star on tour
Bridport
A RECENT encounter with a stranger caused comedian Mark Watson to ponder the uncertain future facing humanity. Not obvious material for a stand-up, but Mark’s fertile imagination and quick wit have turned unpromising material into comedy gold as he comes to Bridport’s Electric Palace on Saturday 17th January with Before It Overtakes Us.
A 20-year veteran of the stand-up circuit, Mark is also known for his cheeky texts on Taskmaster, and is a multi-award-winning YouTube cult figure, Radio 4 favourite and recently Baby Reindeer actor. He is now back on the UK circuity after seasons at the Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Edinburgh comedy festivals.
The new show embraces everything from the grim predictions of humanity’s future to the current state of the UK sausage industry, and much more—in a typically frantic and fun-packed new show.
GPW
