Curtain up at the arts centre . . .

9:00am Thursday 28th August 2008

STARS will descend on Didcot this autumn for the opening season of the town's £7.4m arts centre, Cornerstone.

Exhibition of dyeing, Vale and Downland Museum, Wantage, Oct 1-Nov 8; Children's art exhibition, Modern Art Oxford, Sept 13-19

9:00am Thursday 28th August 2008

THE fascinating history of dyeing will be explored at the Vale and Downland Museum, Wantage, at an exhibition running from October 1 to November 8.

Angel and Sakuran

3:24pm Wednesday 27th August 2008

Two spirited women attempting to breach the conventions of their times dominate this week's minor releases. But neither François Ozon nor Mika Ninagawa wholly succeeds in making us warm to their unconventional heroines.

	Somers Town. Zero: An Investigation into 9/11
	3:16pm Wed 27 Aug 08
	Having skirted the issue of post-9/11 attitudes to Islam by setting This Is England in the 1980s, Shane Meadows similarly ducks the true realities of being a Polish immigrant in New Labour London in Somers Town. However, the lack of socio-political depth is more justifiable in this genial, if slight saga, as neglected 15-year-old Piotr Jagiello and runaway orphan Thomas Turgoose are so untutored in the ways of life that any agit-prop agenda would be wholly inappropriate.

In homage to Pratchett . . .

9:00am Thursday 21st August 2008

ABINGDON'S Studio Theatre is going back to 1990 to help celebrate the 60th birthday of fantasy writer Terry Pratchett.

	The Plough, Long Wittenham
	9:00am Thu 21 Aug 08
	One cold February morning in 2002, I set out in my faithful little Mini to review my first pub for The Herald newspaper. I chose one really close to the office, The Greyhound, at Besselsleigh, where I chomped my way through a tasty steak and ale pie served with chips.

'Fascinating' children's choir plans

9:00am Thursday 21st August 2008

WALLINGFORD Children's Choir has been delighting audiences for almost ten years - and no one is more surprised that its founder, Sue Ledger.

Jimmy Carter Man from Plains, The Banishment and Death Defying Acts

5:01pm Wednesday 20th August 2008

he central premise of Jonathan Demme's documentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains is that the US made a big mistake in not re-electing its 39th President, as not only were so many of his policies ahead of their time, but the world would also have been spared 20 years of Ronald Reagan and the Bush dynasty. Yet in following the 82-year-old on a nationwide tour promoting his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Demme is too often guilty of canonising Carter and trivialising complex issues.

	Hellboy II: The Golden Army
	4:59pm Wed 20 Aug 08
	Hellboy II: The Golden Army, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro's 2004 fantasy based on Mike Mignola's comics series, is every bit as fast and furious as its predecessor, melding dazzling production design with wry humour and explosive action sequences. Having sketched the origins of the characters in the first film, del Toro is given free rein here to let his imagination run amok, concocting a dark and bloody fairy-tale full of trolls, goblins and a 9ft tall Angel of Death.

'3+3' art exhibition, Museum of Oxford, until end of the month; Plaza Suite, The Mill at Sonning Common, until Sept 6; Fireworks concert, Basildon Park, Saturday

9:00am Thursday 14th August 2008

SIX Wantage artists, inspired by the people and landscapes of Oxfordshire, are exhibiting at the Museum of Oxford.

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