First photo show for gallery

The Purbeck New Wave Gallery in Swanage High Street will be holding its first ever open photography exhibition from Tuesday, June 13 until Thursday, July 27, 2023.

The photography on show will be focused on Purbeck, seen through different photographic genres, including landscape, seascape, underwater, aerial, animal and astro as well as unique images of the Jurassic coast from sea level.

The gallery is open every day from 10.00am to 5.00pm and can be found at 43a High Street, near the seafront, opposite the library.

Photographers include Richard Murgatroyd, Milly Haines, Rhonda Hoskins, Ash Saydi, Cenk AlbayrakTouyé, Sarah Day and Steve Belasco

Tribute to genius arriving just like that!

by Faith Eckersall

If you loved a certain fez-wearing magician back in the day you’ll love Just Like That! The Tommy Cooper Show, which is coming to the Forest Arts Centre at New Milton on June 15. Part of the New Forest Comedy Festival, this Cooper estate-approved show features John Hewer giving ‘a remarkably faithful performance’ (Time Out) as he ‘captures Tommy’s style, from mumbled speech and loud laughter to the awkward giant body language’ (The Stage).

Complete with live musical accompaniment, this nostalgic tribute is full of mirth and charm –as well as the comic’s classic gags, some lesserknown gems from his joke archive and many magical tricks.

After a sell-out run at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival and 16 weeks at London’s Museum of Comedy, this tribute has been consistently successful since its premiere in 2014. Booking details: forest-arts.co.uk/event/justtommy-cooper-tribute-show.

by Lorraine Gibson

It’s the season for kicking back in the sunshine (hopefully) and sipping a cool libation, while soaking up some great live music.

And if the line-up for this year’s Wimborne Minster Folk Festival is anything to go by, you can do just that all weekend from June 9 to 11.

Yes, there will be festi-frippery, yes there will be crafts - of both the brewery and the arty variety - and, of course there will be grub galore, however, with the Festival it’s really all about the music, the folk music.

As the already-rock-solid folk scene continues to draw the faithful while inspiring the next generation with its grassroots purpose, it’s been evolving.

Embracing the new audiences, artists with contemporary narratives and reaching dizzying heights of hipness, Wimborne is set to be high on summer’s hotlist of festival must-dos.

Opening headliners are alt-folk outfit, Ranagri, who, with a string of music credentials as long as your fiddle arm and holders of Fatea Magazine’s Band of the Year 2022 title, will deliver a feisty start to the weekend with a new and gleefully-energetic sound that’ll have you air fiddling in no time.

Saturday’s big draw is BBC Radio 2’s award-winning trio, The Trials Of Cato, dubbed ‘the Sex Pistols of folk.’

Formed in the Lebanon, their extraordinary rise has attracted much critical attention. That they clearly pay homage to the folk tradition while wrangling its old bones into something more febrile and modern could well be why. Expect stomp-able tunes and enthralling stories. Heading-up Sunday are the Joshua Burnell Band, an alluringly innovative lot, described as ‘Outstanding’ by Folk Radio U.K., as ‘… adding lashings of Peter Gabriel stylings to the world of trad arrangement’ by the Guardian, and as ‘Folk-fused baroque ‘n’ roll for the modern world’ by themselves.

Sounds fancy and probably why they were the winner of the Rising Star award in the Folk Awards.