Bourne dancer: local lad spotlights in Dorian Gray

This week, a dark myth of 'celeb' culture exploded onstage at Norwich's Theatre Royal, in Matthew Bourne's latest dance spectacle: the ultra-stylish black-and-white fairy-tale, Dorian Gray.

The production (based loosely on the 1890s gothic masterpiece which finally did for Oscar Wilde) - sees Dorian reinvented for the noughties as a fame-hungry waiter-on-the-make.

Discovered by fashionista Lady H. (Bourne's vampification of Wilde's corrupting mentor, Lord Henry Wotton) and top photographer Basil (played by Taverham's own Aaron Sillis), Dorian is catapulted to fame amidst the glitterati as poster-boy for new men's frangrance 'Immortal'.

As Gray's billboard image (which replaces the portrait in the original tale) becomes an icon of youth and purity, celebrity snares him in a fraught bisexual triangle. This plays out through a revolving set which carries the audience on an odyssey from bedroom to bathroom, from gallery to studio and from opera house to posh party. As Gray's fame grows, his poster crystalizes into an evil doppelganger and the stud-made-good embarks on a one-way journey of debauchery, drug-fuelled excess, and murderous rampage.

Bourne, in his 21st year in the business, admits that this unsympathetic piece - which has met with much negativity from reviewers - is 'different' to his usual productions - including the celebrated all-male Swan Lake and double Olivier-winning Play Without Words.

However, audiences have disagreed with the critics in their droves: August's sell-out premiere performances in Edinburgh made Dorian the biggest dance hit in the Festival's history. In Norwich's smash run, the audience - which included comedian Stephen Fry - was similarly enthralled, as the Calvin-Klein-clad company of 11 played out their homoerotic horror-story of vanity, violence and serial-killing. Definitely not one for the squeamish!

Click on the link below for a full-length audio interview with Adam Sillis:

Listen: Feature-length interview with Aaron Sillis

Shore Thing - another 'splash-hit' for Holkham

Hundreds of starstruck locals vied for coveted 'movie extra' places at Holkham this weekend, after London production team Celador Films - of Oscar-nominated Dirty Pretty Things fame - put out a casting call via Radio Broadland.

As cameras rolled, seventy new Norfolk stars were born on the same vast beach where Gwyneth Paltrow famously strutted her stuff at the end of Shakespeare in Love. But a little goes a long way in modern cinematography: movie-effects geeks multiplied their hand-picked squad of locals into a 500-strong search party, pivotal to a key scene in coming-of-age tale, The Scounting Book for Boys.

The shooting session repeated the spectacle seen in Holkham and Cley in November 2007, when UEA-trained Director Saul Dibb recruited hundreds of extras to appear in smash-hit period costume drama The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes.

Dibb - keen to show off the best assets of the local community - hired Hunstanton's Emma Dent as Knightley's body double for bedrom scenes with lusty love-interest, Earl Grey. He also cast Fakenham mum-of-two Catherine Farrell for key 'extras' role as the wet nurse to whom Knightley surrenders illegitimate baby Eliza in a major scene, shot on Cley Marshes at a bleak 6.30am.

With some of the biggest, best and most memorable natural landscapes in the British Isles, Norfolk is no stranger to the silver screen. Blockbusters Stardust, Atonement, 007's Die Another Day, Shakespeare In Love and The Dambusters have all immortalised Norfolk locations.

Churchill’s Torpedo Boat Hits Home of Red Herring

Ship lovers were spoiled for choice at last weekend’s Maritime Festival, held at Great Yarmouth’s Historic South Quay.

A sweep of the dockside took onlookers through centuries of seafaring - from the sedate tall ship, Mercedes, right up to the present day with Caistor Lifeboats’ Bernard Matthews II – Britain’s fastest lifesaving vessel, notching-up a wave-slashing top speed of 40 knots.

Especially for the Festival, the Mercedes played host to The East Norfolk Militia. The local re-enactment group brought the sights, sounds, smells (and smoke!) of the 1800s vividly to life in a crimson-clad quayside parade which included drills, bayonet charges and live musket practice.

The star attraction for naval history buffs was MTB102, the 1937 motor torpedo boat which - as part of the hastily assembled ‘little ships’ fleet - crossed the channel some eight times during ‘Operation Dyndamo’: the

evacuation of troops from Dunkirk.

She later carried Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower on their review of the greatest armada in world history: the 5,000-strong fleet assembled in readiness for the epic D-Day landings.

There was also homage paid to Great Yarmouth’s fishing heritage. Landlubbers were welcomed on board the herring steam-drifter Lydia Eva, and treated to views of Horace and Hannah – the town's very last seaworthy shrimper – as she sailed up and down the river. The vista recalled the industry's heyday at the close of the 19th Century, when 100 boats a day put to sea to bring home pink and brown shrimps for holiday-makers’ teas.

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NB: True History of The Red Herring

Yarmouth is the recognised home of the red herring: fish smoked for a week, to turn a deep, brownish red.

Already well-know by the time of the 16th Century, the red herring was the principal export of Britain's fisheries for over 300 years. The strong-smelling snack - reputedly a great thirst-producer - was often found on the bars of public houses: hence its absorption into the crime fiction genre. The canny criminal, when cornered in his drinking den, would grab a reeking fish on his escape, to literally throw the dogs off the scent - or so the story goes...

North Norfolk artists 'up in arms' over summer sails

North Norfolk's landscape painters were crestfallen this summer to find picturesque Weybourne village lacking its landmark.

For the whole of the holidays, Weybourne Windmill - the 1850's towermill once allegedly occupied by WWII nazi spies - had to be sketched minus its famous sails, which had been removed due to damage.

However, this week two giant lorry-mounted cranes rumbled into town, to take their part in a major re-hang.

Artists touring the area in the autumn will be cheered to find the local landscape once again fully intact.

Top image © Evelyn Simak