Leopard spots
Bridport
IT’s not a typical response: “The consultant had told me he was confident I had throat cancer that had spread into the lymph glands. Joyfully, I held his hand, and looked up to the heavens like a South American footballer after scoring a goal. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.”
But then Mark Steel is no ordinary cancer patient. Join the multi award-winning, BAFTA-nominated writer and comedian as his new tour, The Leopard in My House, comes to Bridport’s Electric Palace on Friday 26th September at 8pm. The theme of the show is Mark’s battle with throat cancer—a battle he is winning (thankfully) and which only his rapier wit could fashion a comedy tour show out of.
Cancer has done nothing to dull Mark’s acute political observations or quash his “frankly bonkers” energy: you will laugh, you will cry, but you’ll laugh again … and again .. and again. The Leopard in My House is proof that this leftie, working-class, Radio 4 favourite truly deserves his place in the UK comedy pantheon.
Mark Steel is best known for his critically-acclaimed BBC Radio 4 show Mark Steel’s in Town (now in its 13th series), as well as his hit podcast What The F*** Is Going On…?. He has presented the BAFTA-nominated Mark Steel Lectures for BBC Two and is a regular on BBC One’s Have I Got News for You and BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz. He has also written several acclaimed books, including an adaptation of his stand-up show Who Do I Think I Am? for Audible.
Inside Out returns
Weymouth and Corfe Castle
THE dramatic ruins of Corfe Castle provide a backdrop and venue for several of the events and installations at this year’s Inside OutDorset festival, which runs from 12th to 21st September across the county.
The biennial event is an international outdoor arts festival, that celebrates Dorset and aims to promote our natural landscape and sense of place. Some of Dorset’s most remarkable urban and rural spots are transformed with experiences that touch hearts and minds like nothing else.
At the heart of what the organisers Activate do is a belief that performing arts should be accessible for all—no matter what their experience or background. Therefore, all of Inside Out Dorset 2025 events are free to attend.
This year’s festival of “extraordinary events in extraordinary places” will feature artists from as far away as India and Catalonia—as well as UK and Dorset-based companies. The locations are Christchurch, Moors Valley Country Park and Forest, Yeovil, Corfe Castle and Weymouth.
This year’s programme includes: River of Hope, at Christchurch, an international project with flags created by young people, relating to the climate crisis;
Consequences, at Corfe Castle and Yeovil, where a monumental new creature will be created for the Dorset National Landscape, inspired by the mystery of the Cerne Abbas Giant. Artist Becca Gill and her company Radical Ritual, along with members of local community groups, have created a new giant for the region.
The organisers say: “In everything we do, we have just two rules—anything is possible and everyone is invited.” More information at activateperformingarts.org.uk.
Out for life and laughs
Honiton
COMEDIAN Em Stroud brings her third one-woman performance, The Em Show: Tales From a Little Laughing Lesbian, to the Beehive Centre at Honiton on 18th September.
Em Stroud’s first show, Coming Out of her Box in 2017 won the Planet Awards for best LGBTQ performance. Her second ME:EM had a sell-out run in London just before the pandemic, but sadly the tour was cancelled.
The uplifting new show explores how being brave and taking yourself out of your comfort zone will help you discover who you really are—and from there you can do anything.
With Em’s signature blend of stand-up, improv and clowning to the stage, audiences are treated to stories from her life—from confidence, wellness, therapy, parenting and lesbianism to marriage, meditation and motorbikes. (And no, you don’t have to be a lesbian to come to see it!).
A decade of colourful ceilidhs
Dorchester
DORCHESTER-based Tatterdemalion, who began life as the band of the New Hardy Players, celebrate their tenth anniversary of folky fun and colourful ceilidhs with a musical family get-together at the Corn Exchange on Saturday 13th September.
For 10 years, Tatterdemalion have bounced around stages, bringing traditional tunes known to Dorset people 200 years ago to life, and involving audiences and participants in many a merry jig all over the county in September.
Since their formation to provide music for the New Hardy Players’ productions, they have branched out into their own career—many newly-weds have enjoyed the strains of the band’s fiddles for their first dance as a couple; many charities have benefitted from their fundraising prowess; and many new folk dancers have had their first experience of the art at the celebrated Kiddies’ Keilidhs.
Band leader Alastair Braidwood reminisces: ‘It was a strange beginning. A group of people who didn’t really know each other very well brought together to play music, who then realised they were on to a good thing. We were asked to play some tunes for a bit of dancing at a party, and then someone else asked if we’d play for a fundraiser and it all took off from there. We’ve become friends over the years; indeed, the number of married couples in the band has lately doubled!’
Recent English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) gold badge winner Tim Laycock, folk singer, historian and musician, has much to answer for; he provided the first tunes and gathered the musicians together. His wife Angela is the primary caller for the group and brings her extensive knowledge, warm manner, and unwillingness to take ‘no’ for an answer to all their gigs.
Alistair says: “All of our tunes come from two manuscripts of folk tunes which were being used for dancing and enjoyment in Dorset in the 1820s and 30s. We’ve updated them a little, with a beat and some fun harmonies, but the traditional tunes would still be recognisable to Thomas Hardy, whose family tunebook is one of our sources.”
Over the last few years, Tatterdemalion’s seasonal ceilidhs with Dorchester Arts have proved very popular, especially with the introduction, at the behest of then-Mayor of Dorchester Gareth Jones, of the Kiddies’ Keilidh, with specially-designed dances for little legs, to encourage youngsters to try folk dance.
Christine Collister
Honiton
CHRISTINE Collister, one of the great stars of the folk scene for 40 years, comes to the Beehive Centre at Honiton on 5th September, with a new show, featuring a collection of songs called Children of the Sea.
Over her four decades in folk music, Christine has released 24 albums, a DVD celebrating 20 years in the business and an acclaimed single with the BBC, the theme tune for The Life and Loves of a She-Devil in 1987.
Throughout, she has consistently mesmerised and delighted audiences with her unique blend of soul, blues, pop, jazz, country and folk, and today she remains as powerful, subtle, effortless and relevant as ever.
Collister grew up on the Isle of Man, and her professional recording career began after she moved to the UK in the mid 1980s, when she came to national attention singing the theme for the BBC Television adaptation of Fay Weldon’s novel, The Life and Loves Of A She Devil. She had a long period of critical and commercial success working with Clive Gregson, followed by an enduring association with Richard Thompson.
Christine is a magical live performer with a gravity-defying voice and great personal charm. As well as folk venues she has long been a familiar and popular performer at major international festivals from Glastonbury to Cambridge, Winnipeg to Port Fairey.
Hamilton
Plymouth
LIN-Manuel Miranda’s multi award-winning Hamilton is at Plymouth Theatre Royal, on its first UK tour, until Saturday 6th September.
Hamilton is the story of one of America’s Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies who became George Washington’s right-hand man during the Revolutionary War and helped shape the very foundations of the America we know today. The score blends hip-hop, jazz, blues, rap, R&B and Broadway—the story of America then, as told by America now. Hamilton has book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who based his world-wide hit show on Ron Chernow‘s biography of Alexander Hamilton.
Dancing for the arts
Minterne
ROYAL Ballet star Meaghan Grace Hinkis returns to Dorset over the weekend of 13th and 14th September with three performances in the grounds of Minterne House, north of Dorchester. The dance gala is raising funds for the performing arts.
Between 2020 and 2022, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, First Soloist with the Royal Ballet, staged three weekend ballet galas in Dorset to raise funds for the performing arts after the devastation caused by the Covid lockdowns. She returns to Dorset this year to stage another fund-raising gala weekend—it is a very special and rare chance to see some of the stars from world class ballet companies perform in this beautiful setting.
The dancers include Royal Ballet Principals Anna Rose O’Sullivan, Mayara Magri, Ryoichi Hirano, Akane Takada, Calvin Richardson and Matthew Ball; Birmingham Royal Ballet Principals Beatrice Parma and Max Maslen; English National Ballet First Soloist Precious Adams and ENB soloist Eric Snyder.
The musicians will be Sergey Levitin, concert master at the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, and Michael Pansters, pianist for The Royal Ballet.
The programme will include works by Marius Petipa, Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Christopher Wheeldon, Wayne McGregor, David Bintley, Johan Kobborg and Liam Scarlett, subject to the necessary permissions.
On Saturday, the gates gates open at 2.15pm, with the performance at 4.30pm. On Sunday, the gates will open at 2pm, and the performance at 4pm. Tickets can be booked with Dorchester Arts, and ticket holders are invited to picnic in the grounds of Minterne House before the performance.
Trio with a broad repertoire
Concerts in the West
THE autumn season of Concerts in the West, on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th September, featuring the Mitsu Trio, begins as always at Bridport Arts Centre, with a coffee-time concert, at 11.30am on Friday, followed by Ilminster Arts Centre that evening and The Dance House at Crewkerne on Saturday, both at 7.30pm.
This brilliant young trio will be performing a thrilling programme of works by Haydn, Henze and Saint-Saëns.
The Mitsu Trio was formed in 2020 by British pianist Tyler Hay, Japanese cellist Akito Goto and Catalan violinist Laura Custodio Sabas. All three members met at the Purcell School for Young Musicians when they were just teenagers, where they formed a strong musical connection.
Aside from the vast standard repertoire for piano trio, the Mitsu players enjoy exploring the less familiar works of composers such as the Czech Bohuslav Martinů and the Brazilian Henrique Oswald. They are also strong advocates of contemporary music, having given the world premiere of Simon Speare’s piano trio. They have also held workshops with the young composers at the Purcell School for Young Musicians.
Finding the Bard
Dorchester
IT’s not just Wales that celebrates its bards—Dorchester has its own competition, with the title of Bard of Caer Dur, to the winner. This year’s celebration of local storytelling, poetry and performance will be at the Corn Exchange, on Sunday 14th September from 2pm.
Join Dorchester Arts for a lively afternoon as six finalists compete for the title of Bard of Caer Dur (Dorchester) 2025. Inspired by Dorset’s rich literary heritage and living landscape, each performer brings their own voice, tradition and tale to the stage. Expect wit, wonder and local pride in abundance.
Hosted by Molly Dunne, current Bard of Dorchester, and Peter Roe, Grand Bard of Dorset, the event will also include guest performances, refreshments and the ceremonial passing of the Bardic staff.
Folk star sisters
Bridport
THE multi-talented Rheingans Sisters bring their golden voices and fertile soundworlds to Bridport Arts Centre on 19th September. In their live shows and recordings, the Sheffield duo Rowan and Anna Rheingans create an immersive and uplifting musical journey.
Exploring evocative influences from across Europe, the sisters’ performances take in baroque fiddle tunes and trance beats, metal-inspired arrangements of traditional ballads and improvisations with phone Voicenotes. Their unmistakable brand of avant-garde and tradition blends ancient song and universal stories with future imaginings, dystopias and dreams.
Previous winners of BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Original Track and nominees for Best Band, with their uniquely blended sound of fiddles, voices, feet, banjos, electric guitar, synths and the powerful bass drones of the medieval tambourin à cordes, the Rheingans Sisters are one of the most visionary acts on the British folk scene. Their latest album, Start Close In, was released in September 2024 to critical acclaim and was one of the Guardian’s Top 10 Albums of 2024.
Earlier in the month, on Saturday 6th September, a group with an authentic sound from a distinct musical period, The Jake Leg Jug Band bring the music of 1920s and 30s America—jazz, blues, ragtime and gospel—with a side order of murder, betrayal, liquor and redemption!
Evoking a bygone age with both their sound and look, the band—Duncan Wilcox on vocals and double bass, Warren James on vocals, guitar and banjo and Liam Ward on vocals, harmonica, jug, washboard, saw and kazoo—is popular at jazz festivals and clubs across the UK. Their latest album, Live at Green Note (their tenth in 13 years), was released in March this year.
Expect to hear long-forgotten songs played on a range of vintage instruments including washboard, harmonica, comb and paper, musical saw, bones and, of course, the humble jug!
Jane Eyre—the back-story
Lyme Regis
CHARLOTTE Bronte’s Jane Eyre is one of the most famous, widely read and critically acclaimed novels in the English language. But how much did the oldest of the three writing Bronte sisters draw on her own life? Live Wire and Roughhouse Theatre’s critically acclaimed production of Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, now on a national tour, with West Country dates in September, comes to Lyme Regis on 9th October.
It marks a significant and poignant anniversary in the writer’s life—200 years ago in 1825, when Charlotte was only nine years of age, both her older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died of consumption, within weeks of each other.
As director Shane Morgan explains: “There is no doubt whatever that the devastating impact of Maria and Elizabeth’s deaths, at just 10 and 11 years old respectively, was key to the germination of the Jane Eyre whose orphaned heroine endures childhood loss, rejection and isolation as she embarks on her quest for familial love and somewhere to belong.”
Adapted by playwright Dougie Blaxland and produced by the same creative team who won the 2021 National Campaign for the Arts Award, Live Wire and Roughhouse Theatre’s Jane Eyre: An Autobiography is a revival of the 2015 production that was hailed “a theatrical tour de force from a company with a rare gift for bringing classics to life with loyalty, energy and intrigue.”
Central to bringing Jane Eyre back to the stage 178 years after the novel’s original publication is what movement director Moira Hunt describes as “its compelling relevance for women in the 21st century.” She says: “Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre broke the mould of the Victorian female stereotype through its dramatisation of a woman of independent mind and means who refuses to be subservient in any way to her male counterparts.”
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduate Alison Campbell reprises her role as Jane Eyre. She says:: “The revival of the production to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the death of Maria and Elizabeth Bronte is of great significance in honouring the extraordinary Bronte family as a whole and highlighting the creative genius that emerged in the face of tragedy.”
Jane Eyre: An Autobiography is at the Alma Tavern in Bristol on 24th September, Taunton’s Brewhouse Theatre on 27th September, The Marine, Lyme Regis, on 9th October, and the Ustinov Studio at Bath Theatre Royal from 13th to 15th October.
A portrait of Debussy
Dorchester
PIANIST Lucy Parham comes to St Mary’s Church at Dorchester on Sunday 21st September at 7pm, with Reverie: The Life and Loves of Claude Debussy, the fourth in her extraordinary Composer Portrait series. For this exploration of the innovative French composer, she is joined by one of Britain’s greatest actors, Sir Simon Russell Beale.
One of the most prolific and versatile composers of the early 20th century, Claude Debussy absorbed and transformed cultural influences from countries as far apart as Scotland (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair), Japan (Poissons d’Or) and the USA (Cake Walk). A crucial element of his complex intellectual and emotional world was an entangled love life that included illicit trysts in Jersey, a brush with a revolver and even a suicide attempt.
The narrative of Rêverie, which takes the form of a personal journal, follows him from his initial success with the Prix de Rome in 1885 to his untimely death in 1918. It is punctuated with solo piano works ranging from the ever-popular lyricism of Clair de Lune, Rêverie and The Girl with the Flaxen Hair to such virtuosic showpieces as Jardins sous la Pluie, the Etudes and L’Isle Joyeuse.
Visions of bliss and pain
Dorchester
THE music of the extraordinary and inspirational medieval Abbess Hildegard of Bingen echoes down a thousand years—join The Telling as they perform Vision, at St Mary’s Church, Dorchester, on Tuesday 30th September, at 7.30pm, celebrating the life, testimony and music of this great woman.
Amid the darkness of the Middle Ages, Abbess Hildegard of Bingen saw the universe in a dazzling light and spoke with an insight and a genius that makes her music and poetry resound down the centuries. Vision explores Hildegard’s extraordinary life as she relives her painful and visceral visionary experiences alongside her extraordinary music, haunting and distinctive chant, performed and acted live.
The performance lasts one hour with no interval. It has been created by award-winning writer Clare Norburn and is directed by BAFTA-nominated director, Nicholas Renton. The Guardian reviewer called it “a beautiful piece .. it really is wonderful, so do try and catch it.”
The Church Times said: “It was the overlap of, interaction between and communication of the music of Hildegard—two voices and medieval harp—and her spoken word … which made the show such a unified, deep telling … if a moment for reflection is needed, or the desire to understand more of Hildegard is to be fulfilled, it is well worth making the time for this.”
Sing with Sammy
Lyme Regis
INSPIRATIONAL singer and workshop leader Sammy Hurden comes to the Marine Theatre on Monday 16th September from 1.15pm for a community singing afternoon.
Sammy, who is also a professional choir director, leads inclusive singing workshop. Enjoy free refreshments and cake at this afternoon event aimed at senior members of the community.
Top comedian headlines
Lyme Regis
REGINALD D Hunter, one of Britain’s most popular and sought-after comedians, headlines Lyme Regis Comedy Club at the Marine Theatre on Saturday 13th September.
A star of Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News For You? and Reginald D Hunter’s Songs Of The South and Songs of The Border, he is the top name in the line-up of four comedians. Support comes from Brendan Common and Su Mi with host Jon Wagstaffe.
GPW
