Anyone expecting a Boris Karloff lookalike, angry villagers with pitchforks and torches and dear old Peter Cushing’s hair flapping about as he conducts mad experiments during a lightning storm in a ruined old castle in the Bavarian alps will be sadly disappointed. Except for the lightning storm that is.
Showstopper! The Improvised Musical – Lighthouse, Poole The essence of live performance is that every show is unique – with this bunch that is doubly so since they rely on the audience to guide them.
These guys were travelling a long way from home, bringing music from the far north east to Dorset – and they were particularly welcome.
Geordie comic Carl Hutchinson has a regular following on the south coast, judging by the ‘seen me before?’ show of hands poll at this intimate Sherling Studio gig. In a sense then, he just picked up where he left off on his previous appearance here.
To describe Russell Kane as a ball of energy would be to underplay his all-action style of delivery, racing from side to side, crouching, kneeling and flinging himself to the stage at will.
If you don’t know much about art but know what you like, as the saying goes, then you will have some sympathy for the protagonists of this multi-award-winning play who struggle to appreciate the finer points of a piece of creative activity.
This friendly festival is very much growing organically into a four-day event with plenty of bands playing on a damp Thursday evening, including stalwarts Quinns Quinney and Rigmarollers.
IT'S 63 years and counting since The Zombies formed in that rock’n’roll hotbed St Albans – and now more than 20 since the band’s successful reunion after decades apart.
THIS was nothing short of an absolute bass guitar masterclass from one of the greatest exponents of the electric four-string instrument operating today.
This was a chance to get up close and personal with one of the best – and possibly quirkiest – singer-songwriters of the past 40 years.
