While lockdown begins to ease for some in the entertainment industry, others remain closed, with the digital world offering access to audiences ...so head online, or curl up with one of two new books from local authors ...

July 7, 8, 15

Ivy Croft - garden open for NGS

Pre-booking only

The garden at Ivy Croft was started in 1977, and the cottage is surrounded by formal beds filled with a wide range of plants. Paths lead away from the cottage into less formal areas, set in open grassland. Plantings of willows, grasses, ferns and snowdrops surround the ecological water treatment system and seasonal pond. Mixed borders lead to a young perry pear orchard, a vegetable garden surrounded by trained fruit trees and an embryonic ‘natural wood’. Pleached limes screen the car park and partially surround an area of alpines.
ngs.org.uk

From July 9 to July 16

The Deep Blue Sea

Helen McCrory stars in Terence Rattigan’s blistering and devastating masterpiece. When Hester Collyer (McCrory) is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge begins to emerge. With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion.
nationaltheatre.org.uk

Until July 16

Royal Opera House

Our House to Your House presents La Boheme

Broadcast online as part of the Royal Opera House’s #OurHouseToYourHouse series.

Puccini’s opera of passion, friendship and heartbreak is one of the best-loved operas worldwide. Its music includes such treats as Rodolfo and Mimì’s Act I arias and duet, the ebullient choruses of Act II and Mimì’s heartrending death scene. Richard Jones’s recent production for The Royal Opera perfectly captures the vulnerability of youth amid the harshness and glamour of a big city. The atmospheric designs, by Stewart Laing, evoke both the poverty of the bohemians’ attic home and the splendour of Paris’s shopping arcades on Christmas Eve.

The opera blends tragedy and comedy, the soulful and the spirited, into a powerful encapsulation of the intenseness of life’s experiences to its young would-be artists and their lovers.

Available now

White Open Spaces

In 2016 Pentabus joined forces with Eclipse, the leading black-led touring company to produce a series of podcasts about race and racism in the countryside. Originally produced as a reaction to Trevor Phillip’s provocation that there was a ‘passive apartheid’ in the countryside, ten years on this podcast series retells three of the original stories and offers three new perspectives on the state of society in 2016. Post-Brexit and pre-Trump what was our national identity? What did it mean to belong to a place if that place might not want you to belong to it?
Sharp, funny and provocative, these six voices reveal the state of the nation in the mid-2010s.
pentabus.co.uk

Wednesdays, until August 13

Orchestra of the Swan

Professional players from Orchestra of the Swan will lead interactive ZOOM music sessions for people living with dementia at home and in residential settings.
Building on their successful Music Cares programmes for people living with dementia in care homes and the community, OOTS are offering a series of collaborative, interactive and live Zoom-based sessions for the home. In these sessions individual players or duos will perform well known pieces from the classics, folk songs and popular pieces encouraging all to sing along and join in via their own laptop, pc, tablet or phone. There is a series of sessions on offer for anyone to join in with for the next five Wednesdays, at 11am and 2.30pm each Wednesday.
To find out more and to receive your personal invitation, please email the Director of Impact and Learning, Sue Pope, at education@orchestraoftheswan.org
You can also enjoy other recordings on the website at orchestraoftheswan.org.

Apply by Monday, August 3

Writer in Residence applications open

Pentabus has announced the third year of support from the Clive and Sylvia Richards’ Charity for their Writer-in-Residence Bursary and opened applications for the 2021 bursary, a £10,000 bursary supports a professional playwright in the early stage of their career, providing the opportunity for the recipient to spend up to a year residing locally and working at Pentabus in South Shropshire. During their time with Pentabus, the recipient will be given the opportunity to write at least one new full length play or piece of theatre, whilst learning more about how a professional theatre company works.
Tom Powell, the current Clive & Sylvia Richards’ Charity Writer in Residence said: “It’s life-changing. It’s time. It’s support and expertise. And it’s money. The pandemic has presented its own challenges but Pentabus have been supportive and considerate. The CSRC Residence offers a different way of doing things and a different way of thinking – it’s changing my work, and it’s changed my life.”
Applications close on Monday August 3 at 10am. For more information regarding the bursary and application process please visit pentabus.co.uk

From July 16

Glasbury Arts Virtual 2020 Exhibition

With the arrival of coronavirus, spaces for artists to exhibit have closed with exhibitions stranded and future schedules thrown into chaos.Glasbury Arts took an early decision to attempt to put together a virtual gallery exhibition showing the work of a wide range of artists with whom Glasbury Arts has a connection. These include three works from the permanent collection at Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Gallery, local artists and significant artists who were featured in last year’s Celebration of Welsh Contemporary Painting, a total or more than 50 pieces of work.
glasburyarts.co.uk

Available now

Living the Goode Life

Richard Goode

An extraordinary story, beginning with a bare-foot colonial childhood, and not speaking English until he was four, yet ending up at Cambridge, ultimately dealing at the highest levels of the Russian aviation industry, and now living in Herefordshire. Richard Goode’s life has been a fascinating series of activities, dealing with an incredible range of people from the notorious Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, to whom he was selling banknotes (legally) to a car dealer who was embroiled in the Brinks-Mat gold robbery (illegally); dealing with Russian spies at the behest of MI5; and aerobatics at the highest levels.

Published by Porter Press International

The Constant Rabbit

Jasper Fforde

The latest novel by the bestselling Herefordshire-based author.
England, 2020. There are 1.2 million human-sized rabbits in the UK, the result of an Inexplicable Anthropomorphising Event 55 years ago. A family of rabbits move into a small village, but no sooner have they arrived than calls come for their removal. The rabbits are befriended by neighbours Peter and Pippa who soon realise you can be friends with humans and with rabbits, but not with both. The team at Rossiter Books are delighted that they get their own special mention on p47. To order a signed copy email iloveit@rossiterbooks.co.uk or phone 01989 564464.

From July 15

Babar Cafe

Owners Nick Herbert and Ally Hardy have been working on various upgrades including media to make the venue available for business conferencing and to install a new kitchen so that they can again offer food to help them get through the months while their role as a popular live music venue is on hold.
Customers are invited to book a table in advance to enjoy food from their Caribbean and traditional British menus. Nick said: “The future is very uncertain for all venues and we are very grateful for our customers’ ongoing support. Hopefully Hereford can come together to help all our amazing venues and restaurants survive this difficult time.” Call 01432 342334 to book.