FROM THE EDITOR

Summer cooking implies a sense of immediacy, a capacity to capture the essence of the fleeting moment.” Melissa Blease quotes Elizabeth David in her review of Circus Restaurant on page 48, which served Melissa with mouthwatering fare including “glistening River Fowey mussles complemented by a softly fiery chorizo and red onion cream sauce”.I’m also applying this sentiment to The Gaff, which gives intensity to those fleeting moments in its new restaurant in Bath, serving precociously beautiful and delicious small plates (see page 52). Yes, we’ve been eating a fair bit this month, and there’s more, because I also visited Iford Manor Gardens where there is a restaurant and café that draws the vast majority of its food and drink from the produce in its kitchen garden, the apples growing on its trees, and the livestock grazing on its land, not to mention the use of a resident ‘mother sourdough’ that needs constant feeding. See page 54 for the full story.

We are dazzled by two exhibitions this month at opposite ends of the spectrum. The first is Lucie Rie: The Adventure of Pottery, which opens at the Holburne on 14 July, and on page 30 we have an excerpt from a book that pays homage to the Austrian-born Rie’s legendary, elegant, timeless work in ceramics. The second is Brick America: An Adventure in LEGO ® Bricks, which is at the American Museum & Gardens from 22 July. I spoke to artist in bricks Warren Elsmore (page 42), who has created models representing America for the show, and once built a model ship that was 12 metres long.

Also this month we have the latest interior trends from Milan Design Week from John Law (page 70); Melissa Blease talks to Rebecca Birch who is starring in Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party at the Theatre Royal (Page 18); and I find out about modern pentathlon and laser run, and the world championships in Bath this August (page 60).

Don’t forget capture your fleeting moments this month, in food or otherwise...

Front cover image: Statue of Liberty created by Warren Elsmore for the Brick America LEGO ® Exhibition at the American Museum and Gardens.

Yes we love them both and what a treat to have these great theatrical figures and old friends, Sir Ian McKellan and Roger Allam, come to Bath to star in Frank and Percy in the National Premiere of Ben Weatherill’s play. Frank and Percy is a poignant and witty take on the unexpected relationship that blossoms between two men. Ever seen a couple of old boys on a park bench and wondered what they are chatting about? In his play Ben Weatherill lets us overhear Frank and Percy as they discuss the weather, then their dogs and then each other and so much more. Will the widowed schoolteacher and the elder statesman dare to risk changing their lives, or let sleeping dogs lie?

Old friends, three-time Olivier Award winner Roger Allam, and one of our greatest stage and screen actors, Sir Ian McKellen, re-unite with director Sean Mathias, for this witty, poignant two-hander.

Frank and Percy is at Theatre Royal Bath from 25 July –5 August.

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