THERE are theatrical highlights aplenty to look forward to with a new season of entertainment coming to Dorset village halls courtesy of Artsreach.

John Osborne presents an ode to radio in his acclaimed solo show John Peel’s Shed. Scratchworks Theatre will use a raucous combination of physical theatre, live music and clowning to unravel the tale of the four forgotten females of The Great Train Robbery.

Farnham Maltings proudly present the English premiere of hauntingly moving new play Title & Deed, exploring what it is to search for ‘home’. Last Chance Saloon twists two classic stories in a side-splitting double-bill; Curse of the Mummy and Sherlock Holmes. French-English duo Spitz & Co are back with Les Gloriables, a riotously funny show inspired by Victor Hugo’s novel, which sees Gloria Delaneuf determined to reunite Europe with a piece of theatre.

Join storyteller Emily Hennessey and sitar player extraordinaire, Sheema Mukherjee, for a white-knuckled tuc-tuc ride through sun-kissed palaces and fiend-infested forests in Kali: the World’s Wildest Goddess. Enjoy a poetry and pint night down your local as Jonny Fluffypunk fuses elements of theatre, storytelling, comedy and stand-up poetry in a brand new spoken-word show for rural pubs. Acclaimed musicians MINIMA perform a superbly sinister live music score to a screening of the original 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera.

Following the acclaimed stage tour of Kinetics, there will be a screening of the brand new DT2 Productions film adaptation of the play, before it heads to London. The Ridgeway Singers & Band invite you to join them and celebrated the birthday of William Barnes with a feast of Dorset Fayre at the annual Barnes Supper.

Based on movement, acrobatics, the Chinese pole and other circus skills, Spanish company D’Click Circo explores the subtle barrier that exists between physical theatre and dance and between magic and dreams in their award-winning circus show Isla.