What not to miss this week
Summer Sculpture Park
TWENTY-three sculptors are showing more than 70 works in Altered States, in the summer sculpture park in the grounds of Newbury’s historic Elizabethan mansion Shaw House. The show is open from 11am to 4pm every day until Sunday, September 29. Free entry and car parking. Dogs and children welcome.
Still time to see Barnum!
BARNUM’S gone down a storm at The Watermill. Step right up and enter the dazzling world of PT Barnum, where imagination and ambition know no bounds. The Bagnor theatre’s summer spectacular continues until September 8. Hand in hand with wife Charity, Barnum’s life and career twists and turns as he schemes and dreams his way to headier heights. However, the irresistible pull of an ever-bigger humbug comes at a cost, and the people paying are usually those on whom Barnum tramples on the way to the top. www.watermill.org.uk
Pop-up painters
THE POP-UP art exhibition among the Crane garden buildings at Hilliers garden centre in Prior’s Court Road, Hermitage, continues to Sunday, featuring the work of two local artists, Julie Pearson and Kevin Scully, well-known to the area through Open Studios. Their work will be on display daily from 10am to 4pm.
DJs in the Park
NEWBURY’S Good Vibes Music Academy is presenting Submachine – a day of music, from funk n soul, hip hop, garage, breakbeat to DNB in Victoria Park on Saturday. It’s going to be a very chilled informal day of music with live DJs performing from a blow-up yellow submarine including Aaron K who’s a breakbeat champion and has his own show on Kennet Radio, Sam Beecroft who has performed in Ibiza, Ministry of Sound etc and a headline set from the young up-and-coming talent DJ Hypester, who’s getting a lot of attention and play time at the moment. It’s a big family affair with music playing from 12pm to 8pm by the skate park in Victoria Park.
New Era Love Letters
NEW Era Plyers open their two-hander Love Letters, a 1988 work by AR Gurney at their Wash Common Theatre on Wednesday. This play has been nominated for awards and has appeared in the West End and on Broadway, most recently revived by Martin Shaw and Jenny Seagrove in 2020. A poignant work, it charts the lifelong relationship between two people, where the words are front and centre. It is a true epistolary work, as all the lines are read from letters the pair have exchanged over the years. Performances from September 4 to 7 and 11 to 14 at New Era Theatre, Andover Road, Wash Common. Tickets, £15, are available from ticketsource.co.uk/new-era-players This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International on behalf of Josef Weinberger Ltd.
