Budleigh Past and Present

Fairlynch Trustee Kate Somerby will be performing as one of the members of the Exeter Festival Chorus   on Sunday 15 November at 3.00 pm in Sidmouth Parish Church. Professional actress and Fairlynch volunteer Kate Somerby, with friend Described as “a unique Sunday matinée of choral favourites, from the intensity of Lotti's Crucifixus to the cool of Manhattan Transfer's Java Jive ,  the programme   includes Handel's Zadok the Priest , Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine , Queen's Seaside Rendezvous , Paul Simon's Bridge Over Troubled Water plus music by Rachmaninov, Mozart, John Rutter and jazz legend George Shearing. And if that were not enough, also included is Bob Chilcott's masterly musical setting of Aesop's Fables which brings to life each story, from the groaning mountain to the dozing tortoise at the end of the race, in a portrayal of these moral tales that is sure to appeal to audiences of ...

  Sir Walter Ralegh: celebrity of the Elizabethan world of entertainment He may have been described as “a stupid get” by the Beatles in one of their 1960s songs but it seems that Sir Walter Ralegh’s reputation in the entertainment world of his times made him as popular a figure as the Four Lads from Liverpool. The East Budleigh-born explorer, courtier and author was, so Professor Jonathan Bate of Warwick University points out, “like a celebrity figure of the day and his poems were set to music – they were like the pop songs of the Elizabethan era.”   How much did Shakespeare owe to Sir Walter?  The Shakespearean Authorship Trust even includes Ralegh as a candidate among the many who may have composed work by the Stratford Bard.   Some of the characters in Shakespeare quote odd lines from Ralegh poems, notes Professor Bate.    So it’s no surprise th...