This is the third joint exhibit by 3 Dorset artists whose individual work and styles are as complementary as they are contrasting.

Bare Orange Art works with fabric, acrylics, Lino cut, wood & canvas to create stunning pieces focused on local wildlife.

Nick Dale Artist specialises in paintings inspired by the rugged beauty and rural charms of South West England, with an eye for vibrant colours and detail.

Fusiology Glass Art brings a collection of unique and colourful fused glass pieces. Plus, a distinctive fusion of silver and fused glass jewellery inspired by pattern and textures.

A sneak peek at what’s to come at Shaftesbury Fringe 2026! Standout performers bring bit-sized excerpts, giving you the perfect chance to discover your favourites and plan your Fringe before the weekend kicks off.

Age Restriction: 12+

The Leading Ladies are back with the best of the West End and Broadway! Join us as we celebrate the leading ladies of Musical Theatre. Expect fabulous singing, stunning harmonies and under rehearsed segeus as we bring you the classics that you love plus some new songs to add to your favourites.

Pass The Hat

One woman, armed with American ignorance, French arrogance, and a chest that some say she grew on purpose, bursts onto the stage in sparkles and stilettos: meet Liza Minelli and Debbie Harry’s love child. This pro-singer-turned-musical-comedian is ready to sing at you: to land her cheeky, unbelievable, and sometimes tear-jerking true-life stories into your lap.
Barbara Fernandez, fed up of Americans at university playing down Europe as ‘only a tourist destination’, arrives in Paris age 22 with a degree in theatre and a dream: to live and work there – without a French passport, or any other working papers. 10 years of chaos ensues: cash-in-hand jobs (it’s not what you’re thinking, some are singing jobs), love tussles with partners who are sometimes trench-digging, other times cult-loving and even pillow-wielding, and shaggable therapists – all delivered in powerfully funny parodies with snippets of famous songs recrafted to poke fun at a rocky road to self-discovery.

From sultry pop to classical trills and belting cabaret-style showstoppers, Barbara lustily celebrates female power amidst chaos.

★★★★ “Outrageously funny musical comedy show. What an excellent comedian” – Theatre and Arts Review

★★★★ “Soaring vocals, belly laughs, and touching tales” – FringeReview

★★★★ “Cole Porter meets Victoria Wood – with a dash of Calendar Girls cheekiness…Raunchy, rebellious, and real…A must-see show” – Sussex News

Age Restriction: 18+

Tickets: £12

Mike Hatchard (NOT upside down!) and Olivia Post in a compelling dark comedy about a would-be concert pianist who ends up playing background music at the Luton Skyport Hotel.

Mike Hatchard is so brilliant it hurts…’ SALLY HOLLOWAY (top selling guide to comedy writing).

‘A first rate show with enduring things to say, it’s also a comment on how we treat our gifts’ SIMON JENNER, Brighton Festival.

Shaftesbury Fringe regular Robyn Perkins is back with an hour of stand-up comedy.Per request (from last year’s show), at the beginning of the show, the audience will decide if the show will be ‘Million Dollar Maybe’ (a past show) OR a mish-mash of stand-up comedy, hectic stories and science comedy.

Regardless, it will be funny. Shaftesbury Fringe 2023 Award Winner, Best Comedy

Age Restriction 16+

Free Entry/Pass The Hat

Belle Street are behind bars – but what was their crime?You are invited to be both judge and jury as Susan Grant and Joni de Winter make their case and defend themselves against accusations of arresting bitch-face, possession on unrealistic expectations and using their cell time to finally have a ‘well deserved rest’.

Expect a musical whirlwind of country, musical theatre, rock and roll and razor sharp comedy (we hope). With their signature charm, chaos and audience interaction, Belle Street are back and (mildly) reoffending.

Age Restriction: 12+

Tickets: £12

Students from Stagecoach Blandford Forum & Shaftesbury take to the stage once more to entertain you with songs from a variety of musicals. Come and watch from 12:00 – 13:00 on Saturday & Sunday @ Shaftesbury Arts Centre.

Free entry for all.

Join marine biologist turned award-winning comedian Robyn Perkins and hilarious quick-witted comedian and singer friend Elaine Fellows, for a battle royale to determine which is the best Coral Reef in the world!

Packed with comedy, science, music and games, plus more fascinating animal facts than you can shake a tentacle at. Come armed with your own reef facts and opinions, as this show leaves no coral unturned.

‘A show that was equal parts smart, silly and downright hilarious’ ★★★★★ (KidsInAdelaide.com.au)

‘Entertaining from start to finish for kids and adults alike’ ★★★★★ (FringeFeed.com.au)

Advance Tickets Adult £8 / U18s £7 (discount applied at checkout) and on the day Adult £10 / U18s £8.

A Fringe Hit from 2025 is back with his fun bubble show.Everybody loves bubbles but popular Children’s Entertainer & Bubble Showman, Richard Welsh really loves bubbles and he wants to show you why. Mixing bubbles, music and comedy, Richard engages and delights audiences of all ages. Be amazed as Richard performs some wonderful bubble tricks which will include breath taking giant bubbles. There will be plenty of interactive entertainment with some fun bubble games.

Tickets:
Individual: £10
Family (2x Adults, 2x Children): £32

Seven artists present a vibrant showcase of creativity that offers something to delight every visitor.

Including; nature inspired oil paintings and reduction lino prints, alongside bright, colourful acrylic works rich in symbolism.

Moving ‘Beyond the Frame’, this exhibition also features wearable silk art, glistening fused glass sculpture, and beautifully crafted functional ciramics.

An exhibition of oil paintings and soft pastel drawings of woodland by Dorset artist Andy Rollo whose creative practice is in response to his immediate surroundings and the exploration of time, memory, the seasons, connections and patterns in nature.

Instagram: @ADRolloartist

Lucinda Hawksley is an author, historian, broadcaster and travel writer.

She has been in conversations with Rhys Griff Jones, Miriam Margoles and various other well known personalities. She appears at the Dickens festivals, speaks at book events and has written about a fascinating variety of things…..titles include Moustaches, whiskers and beards, A Victorian Treasury, Charles Dickens and his Circle, Bitten by Witch Fever The history of the bra and many more.

She has appeared on the One Show as well as on songs of praise, and several other television shows. This is a one-off opportunity to hear a fascinating evening of conversation, talk and questions over a complimentary glass of wine. The bar will be open for your second glass!

Get ready for five exciting days of creativity, performance and fun! Our Multi-Arts Week is a hands-on holiday course packed with opportunities to explore art, music, drama and dance alongside professional artists, musicians and performers.

Throughout the week, participants will discover new skills, build confidence, make friends and create their own original work in a supportive and inspiring environment. Every day brings a new creative adventure, with activities designed to encourage imagination, teamwork and self-expression.

Young people will have the chance to try a wide range of creative techniques including:
Batik
Printing
Oil pastels
Stop motion animation
Playing musical instruments
Singing
Dancing
Acting and performance

Whether your child already loves the arts or simply wants to try something new, this course is designed to be welcoming, engaging and accessible for all abilities.

£160
Sibling (for children with a sibling paying full price) £120

Ages: 07-11

Get ready for five exciting days of creativity, performance and fun! Our Multi-Arts Week is a hands-on holiday course packed with opportunities to explore art, music, drama and dance alongside professional artists, musicians and performers.

Throughout the week, participants will discover new skills, build confidence, make friends and create their own original work in a supportive and inspiring environment. Every day brings a new creative adventure, with activities designed to encourage imagination, teamwork and self-expression.

Young people will have the chance to try a wide range of creative techniques including:
Batik
Printing
Oil pastels
Stop motion animation
Playing musical instruments
Singing
Dancing
Acting and performance

Whether your child already loves the arts or simply wants to try something new, this course is designed to be welcoming, engaging and accessible for all abilities.

£160
Sibling (for children with a sibling paying full price) £120

Ages: 07-11

Get ready for five exciting days of creativity, performance and fun! Our Multi-Arts Week is a hands-on holiday course packed with opportunities to explore art, music, drama and dance alongside professional artists, musicians and performers.

Throughout the week, participants will discover new skills, build confidence, make friends and create their own original work in a supportive and inspiring environment. Every day brings a new creative adventure, with activities designed to encourage imagination, teamwork and self-expression.

Young people will have the chance to try a wide range of creative techniques including:
Batik
Printing
Oil pastels
Stop motion animation
Playing musical instruments
Singing
Dancing
Acting and performance

Whether your child already loves the arts or simply wants to try something new, this course is designed to be welcoming, engaging and accessible for all abilities.

£160
Sibling (for children with a sibling paying full price) £120

Ages: 07-11

Get ready for five exciting days of creativity, performance and fun! Our Multi-Arts Week is a hands-on holiday course packed with opportunities to explore art, music, drama and dance alongside professional artists, musicians and performers.

Throughout the week, participants will discover new skills, build confidence, make friends and create their own original work in a supportive and inspiring environment. Every day brings a new creative adventure, with activities designed to encourage imagination, teamwork and self-expression.

Young people will have the chance to try a wide range of creative techniques including:
Batik
Printing
Oil pastels
Stop motion animation
Playing musical instruments
Singing
Dancing
Acting and performance

Whether your child already loves the arts or simply wants to try something new, this course is designed to be welcoming, engaging and accessible for all abilities.

£160
Sibling (for children with a sibling paying full price) £120

Ages: 07-11

Get ready for five exciting days of creativity, performance and fun! Our Multi-Arts Week is a hands-on holiday course packed with opportunities to explore art, music, drama and dance alongside professional artists, musicians and performers.

Throughout the week, participants will discover new skills, build confidence, make friends and create their own original work in a supportive and inspiring environment. Every day brings a new creative adventure, with activities designed to encourage imagination, teamwork and self-expression.

Young people will have the chance to try a wide range of creative techniques including:
Batik
Printing
Oil pastels
Stop motion animation
Playing musical instruments
Singing
Dancing
Acting and performance

Whether your child already loves the arts or simply wants to try something new, this course is designed to be welcoming, engaging and accessible for all abilities.

£160
Sibling (for children with a sibling paying full price) £120

Ages: 07-11

Get ready for five exciting days of creativity, performance and fun! Our Multi-Arts Week is a hands-on holiday course packed with opportunities to explore art, music, drama and dance alongside professional artists, musicians and performers.

Throughout the week, participants will discover new skills, build confidence, make friends and create their own original work in a supportive and inspiring environment. Every day brings a new creative adventure, with activities designed to encourage imagination, teamwork and self-expression.

Young people will have the chance to try a wide range of creative techniques including:
Batik
Printing
Oil pastels
Stop motion animation
Playing musical instruments
Singing
Dancing
Acting and performance

Whether your child already loves the arts or simply wants to try something new, this course is designed to be welcoming, engaging and accessible for all abilities.

£160
Sibling (for children with a sibling paying full price) £120

Ages: 11-16

Wild and Wonderful is a collection of photographs inspired by a place or a feeling; a moment captured of the view around us.

We are three amateur photographers brought together by a mutual love of photography and our emotional connection to the landscape. It’s not just about taking the image, but about how it feels to stand there, immersed in the moment. The occasional use of abstract styles invites space for the viewer to slow down and bring their own personal interpretations.

Photography gives us the opportunity to engulf ourselves in the mood of the landscape. At times it’s wild, at times it’s wonderful, and when everything comes together – it’s both!

Join our Music and Drama Group’s Youth Theatre in their variety show ‘Time to Shine’.

See their passion and creativity – a feast of song, dance, sketches and music, along with their visible love and passion of all things theatrical.

It is their ‘Time to Shine’.

Tickets won’t hang around for long, so grab your now to share the joy.

Join our Music and Drama Group’s Youth Theatre in their variety show ‘Time to Shine’.

See their passion and creativity – a feast of song, dance, sketches and music, along with their visible love and passion of all things theatrical.

It is their ‘Time to Shine’.

Tickets won’t hang around for long, so grab your now to share the joy.

Join our Music and Drama Group’s Youth Theatre in their variety show ‘Time to Shine’.

See their passion and creativity – a feast of song, dance, sketches and music, along with their visible love and passion of all things theatrical.

It is their ‘Time to Shine’.

Tickets won’t hang around for long, so grab your now to share the joy.

Ladies and Gentlethem – feeling a little upset? Have you tried hypnosis, psychoanalysis, smelling salts and it just doesn’t work? Try The City for Incurable Women!

Paris, 1880s. In a psychiatric hospital, female patients performed ‘hysteria’ for the public. The doctors went to extraordinary lengths to prove their theories about the four stages of madness. Today, in the 21st century, the storyteller Kae, begins to explore this history. They trace the echoes to the present, feeling them linger in their own body, and perhaps get a little too caught in the story.

International theatre-collective, fish in a dress follow the thread of the history of hysteria in their critically-acclaimed show (★★★★ The Stage, ★★★★★ Theatre Weekly) as the audience becomes complicit in an outrageous tale of medical misogyny. (Warning: hysteria cure not included).

“High-precision performance that crackles with vulnerability, confusion and intelligence.”
★★★★ The Guardian

Devised by fish in a dress. Supported by Goethe Institute and London Performance Studios.

Tickets:
Adults: £18
Members, Friends & U18s: £16

3 artists and a ceramicist who met on the Newlyn Professional Mentoring programme sharing an affinity for wild unkempt places, be it meadows, messy gardens or foreign lands.

OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck.
Adapted by Nigel Miles – Thomas
Presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International: www.mtishows.co.uk

Set against the harsh backdrop of the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men is the story of George and Lennie, two friends with a simple dream: to own a farm and live off the fat of the land. There are times, though, when sharp witted George feels the burden of looking after Lennie, while gentle giant Lennie doesn’t realise his own strength… As they drift from job to job, trouble’s never far away, and before long it’’s time to move on again. When the pair get work in Soledad, California, however, the dream looks set to become a reality. But a tragic turn of events threatens to destroy George and Lennie’s friendship and leaves George faced with an impossible choice.

Starring:
Nigel Miles- Thomas
Michael Roy Andrew
Directed by Larry Lamb

Nigel Miles-Thomas
Nigel has had an extensive career spanning five decades. He has worked with Steven Berkoff, performed a leading role in London’s West End in The Fifteen Streets as well as many of the regional theatres in the UK. Internationally Nigel has performed in the USA and all over Europe and Asia.in over 100 plays. Founder member of The Cherub Theatre and Medieval Players Theatre companies, first performing in Edinburgh at the Fringe in The Two Noble Kinsmen in 1979. .Well known on TV for his appearance in ‘Dr Who’. Grange Hill, as well as many of the UK’s popular programmes. Together with his Fringe Management partner Michael Blaha they produced the first Pantomime in Los Angeles starring Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1993. Last seen in Doha as Sherlock Holmes The Last Act which has since being touring the UK and will be part of the Cunard programme in 2026 on The Queen Mary 2.

Michael Roy Andrew
Since graduating from The Arts Educational Schools in 1984, Michael has appeared in countless theatre productions over the years. Most notably as John Merrick in ‘The Elephant Man’, Dr Frankenstein in ‘Frankenstein’ Puck in ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream, Mercutio in ‘Romeo and Juliet, Dr Watson in ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes and of course George in Of Mice and Men. He has appeared in several TV and Films including ‘Coronation Street’ Michael is regular, year round cold water swimmer in the Hampstead ponds in London and featured in the recent documentary ‘The Ponds’

Age Restriction: 12+

OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck.
Adapted by Nigel Miles – Thomas
Presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International: www.mtishows.co.uk

Set against the harsh backdrop of the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men is the story of George and Lennie, two friends with a simple dream: to own a farm and live off the fat of the land. There are times, though, when sharp witted George feels the burden of looking after Lennie, while gentle giant Lennie doesn’t realise his own strength… As they drift from job to job, trouble’s never far away, and before long it’’s time to move on again. When the pair get work in Soledad, California, however, the dream looks set to become a reality. But a tragic turn of events threatens to destroy George and Lennie’s friendship and leaves George faced with an impossible choice.

Starring:
Nigel Miles- Thomas
Michael Roy Andrew
Directed by Larry Lamb

Nigel Miles-Thomas
Nigel has had an extensive career spanning five decades. He has worked with Steven Berkoff, performed a leading role in London’s West End in The Fifteen Streets as well as many of the regional theatres in the UK. Internationally Nigel has performed in the USA and all over Europe and Asia.in over 100 plays. Founder member of The Cherub Theatre and Medieval Players Theatre companies, first performing in Edinburgh at the Fringe in The Two Noble Kinsmen in 1979. .Well known on TV for his appearance in ‘Dr Who’. Grange Hill, as well as many of the UK’s popular programmes. Together with his Fringe Management partner Michael Blaha they produced the first Pantomime in Los Angeles starring Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1993. Last seen in Doha as Sherlock Holmes The Last Act which has since being touring the UK and will be part of the Cunard programme in 2026 on The Queen Mary 2.

Michael Roy Andrew
Since graduating from The Arts Educational Schools in 1984, Michael has appeared in countless theatre productions over the years. Most notably as John Merrick in ‘The Elephant Man’, Dr Frankenstein in ‘Frankenstein’ Puck in ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream, Mercutio in ‘Romeo and Juliet, Dr Watson in ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes and of course George in Of Mice and Men. He has appeared in several TV and Films including ‘Coronation Street’ Michael is regular, year round cold water swimmer in the Hampstead ponds in London and featured in the recent documentary ‘The Ponds’

Age Restriction: 12+

An intimate evening with Wareham Whalers, starting with a fish and chip supper before joining them in the Rutter room for an evening of shanties.

What’s not to like? A lively evening of fun and song with a British favourite food to set us all up for a great atmosphere.

Age Restriction: 12+

Tickets: £12 (includes fish & chips or pea fritter & chips. This is a fundraiser so no reductions available, sorry.)

Everyone has a story. Your stories matter. Keith Alessi was neither a performer nor a musician before taking to the stage. He was an accountant and corporate CEO! He now shares his unconventional true story of overcoming great obstacles including cancer and how the healing power of music brought him back home to himself.

The grassroots sound of the banjo lures you in and brings you back to a simpler time in life, as Keith takes you on the journey of his story. This show has been highly awarded and reviewed while touring internationally and has profoundly affected audiences everywhere. Themes of forgiveness and the importance of pursuing your passions resonate throughout.

The variety of banjos that join him on stage are all characters and played important roles in his journey.

This is more than a show, it’s a cause. Keith has never accepted any form of remuneration for his performances, instead choosing to donate it to local charities and to Theatres in support of Artist development. As of June 2026 we have raised over $1.3 Million Dollars (CAD) for these causes.

“Storytelling at its best!” ~PLAYBILL
“Be ready to laugh and weep in equal measure.” ~NORTH WEST END UK

Tickets:
Adults: £15
Members, friends, U18s: £12.50