Reviews

New Forest Players    Ballard School, New Milton  Darren Funnell 26 July  2023 It’s easy to sideline Calendar Girls as a bunch of ladies at the Knapeley Village in the late nineties getting their kit off for an alternative WI calendar to raise funds for a local hospital. Put your dental appointment on Miss October, if you please. A media storm driven by the quaint idea that ordinary women can stick their head above the parapet and do something different to raise funds for the community and to fight blood cancer. What it is, however, is an expression of loss.

Highcliffe Charity Players    St Mark’s Church, Highcliffe  Chelsea Ball 26 July  2023 I’ll be honest, today has not been a brilliant day. What with various mishaps with traffic and some very wet washing, I was really not in the mood to be braving the rain and heading to St James’s Church to see Highcliffe Charity Players most recent show. However, how pleased I was to be a part of an audience who had the honour to see a very talented group of people have an absolute blast on stage. I don’t think I am overstating it when I say

Ringwood Musical & Dramatic Society [RMDS]    Greyfriars Community Centre, Ringwood KD Johnson 25 July  2023 If you’ve ever been to one of the RMDS Summer Shows at the Greyfriars Community Centre in Ringwood then you will need no introduction, but for those who haven’t been a brief explanation is required. There are three performance stages, each with its own audience seating, set, lighting, musical director and crew – in three halls dotted around the venue.  There is a meeting area and a cash bar in the middle.  On arrival, each ticket holder is allocated a coloured wristband and becomes

Maskers Theatre Company    Townhill Park House, The Gregg School, Southampton Anne Waggott 18 July  2023 “Jane Eyre, raised in poverty and neglect, but sharp-witted and thirsty for knowledge, fights to make a better life for herself. Love is unexpected.” Theatre experiences (and reviews!) are always subjective to a degree; whether a production succeeds or fails can be as much down to audience taste as it is the performances and production elements themselves. As Jane Eyre is one of my favourite novels and I have seen many renditions of it, both on stage and screen – with a few that

Chesil Theatre    Grounds of Winchester College, Winchester Anne Waggott 11 July  2023   There can’t be many people who have never even heard of Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson’s enduring classic tale of pirate adventures on the high seas and their quest to find the late Captain Flint’s hidden golden treasure. Who hasn’t heard of Long John Silver?! So, if, like me, you have loved the story since childhood and have tickets for Chesil Theatre’s open-air production of Treasure Island, you probably think that you know exactly what to expect – but you may, in fact, be in for

Studio Theatre    Studio Theatre, Salisbury Anne Waggott 9 July  2023 It was my absolute pleasure to review Studio Theatre’s dress rehearsal of Robert Harling’s semi-biographical play, Steel Magnolias, made more famous through the 1989 film version of the same title. The original play focuses on the main female protagonists, with the men only referred to and present off-stage, thus making it a popular production for amateur dramatic groups and societies; there are often many more women than men amongst the available actors! In Steel Magnolias, six Southern women show their strength and resilience as they bond over the shampoo