Cambridge Art
Magazine
Critic's choice
Printmaking at Curwen Centre
With the start of British Summertime Curwen Print Study Centre has launched the start of its print progress - a collaborative and accumulative celebration of print.All artists attending courses at the study centre betwee...
Night at the Museum
The sounds of Abba could be heard outside The Fitzwilliam Museum last Friday evening. Saxual Healing, an all-female saxophone quartet performed a medley of the band’s songs along with other jazzed-up pop hits on th...
Saved for the Nation
Rarely could £3.9 million be referred to as a bargain-basement price. It could buy you a luxury house, it could buy a more than competent football player, and according to World Aid statistics, it could pay for the...
Cambridge Blog
Magazine
Critic's choice
Bury: National Garden Festival
Something’s stirring in the undergrowth, peeping through poppy patches, blinking through the begonias in a tell-tale flash of cream and pink. The unmistakable sight of Englishmen resplendent in panama hats and rasp...
Ely: Arts and Nature
Many exciting cultural and artsy events took place this week, and we folk of the Isle lapped them up. For fans of nature, theatre, classical guitar, folk music, cinema, art and crafts, and food, there was much cause for ...
Royston: Father's Day
So another Father’s Day has come and gone. The fruit of my loins, now adult, descended on the family domicile on Sunday afternoon to lounge about on sofas and to watch England scrape a narrow victory over New Zeala...
Cambridge: Making Dad proud
Suicide Sunday (marking the end of university exams), coincided with Father’s Day this year, which may well explain why the students out in force on Jesus Green seemed on their best celebratory behaviour.
...
Cambridge Cinema
Magazine
Critic's choice
Behind the Candelabra
Rather like the face of its subject, Behind the Candelabra, released in UK cinemas in early June, has been constructed with a forensic attention to detail. The problem with it is that, somewhere along the way, its makers...
Cambridge Classical & Jazz
Magazine
Critic's choice
Milos Karadaglic in concert
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There is no instrument more ubiquitous than the guitar. It has developed in a variety of forms and is central to a diverse range of musical styles in countries and cultures around the world. In recent years it has had le...
Classical Guitar Maestro
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At the Cambridge Corn Exchange Miloš Karadaglic picks up his guitar and begins to play. His fingers move steadily over the fretboard. His whole body shifts in a slow precise dance, coaxing music out of the instrum...
Simon Boccanegra
It is a tribute to the English Touring Opera (ETO) that they tour works that don’t appear in the top 20 classical hit parade. Hats off then to their latest production, Simon Boccanegra, which delighted the nearly f...
A Night at the Opera
Donizetti is a dazzling draw for opera-goers. A prolific composer he never seems to fail to delight audiences with his thrilling music and driving stories. Back a Donizetti opera and you’re in for a good night out....
Cambridge Eating Out
Magazine
Critic's choice
Luxurious spice in Newmarket
Step into the exotic world of Haldy, where traditional Indian cookery blends with modern elegance to create a comfortable, welcoming place to spend an evening out.With over 35 years of experience, the staff at Haldy will...
Newmarket's new restaurant
Rhubarb is Stuart and Emeline's vision to bring real all-occasion dining to Newmarket, specialising in classic British fare with flair.The town’s answer to European fusion, Rhubarb combines classic British gas...
Kushiara, St Ives
Have you ever wandered past St Ives' oldest restaurant and wondered why there are boats in the window?
Well, one balmy May evening in search of tantalising cuisine we ventured inside and discovered it is because...
Cambridge Arts Picturehouse
There are very few places in Cambridge to while away the entire day, from noon until the late evening, but there's one place where small tables, comfortable cane chairs and stand up tables create a continental style caf&...
Loch Fyne, Cambridge
Loch Fyne, situated just across from the Fitzwilliam Museum, started life as a shack selling oysters on the shores of Loch Fyne. Now a national chain, the Cambridge restaurant is one of the oldest branches and still rema...
Meet you in The Pear Tree!
Set in a the beautiful rural village of Hildersham, just 8 miles south of Cambridge, the Pear Tree Inn is a freehouse where we pride ourselves on providing that special country welcome.Our location lends itself perfectly...
Cambridge Family
Magazine
Critic's choice
Drama Kids
Do you want to boost your children’s literacy, encourage their imaginations and develop their confidence? Well, according to many drama teachers, getting them into theatre is the way forward.
Rosie Humphre...
An Olympic Legacy?
Almost a year has passed since the glorious summer of 2012 when the whole country stopped to see Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and Bradley Wiggins storm to sporting success. The colour was gold but the buzzword of the London 2...
Cambridge Food and wine
Magazine
Critic's choice
Summer Tipples
We get so little summer sunshine these days that it can be tempting to reach for old favourites - bog standard fizzy pops, Pimms, refreshing ciders and rosé wines - the moment the sun makes its brief annual appear...
Eating Out Alfresco
Who says that Cambridge can’t compete with the sun-drenched street cafés and bar terraces of other European cities? Narrow streets and packed pavements aside, we think there are some fantastic hidden sun tra...
The Vegetarian Verdict
More than 60 per cent of localsecrets readers who took part in our survey believe vegetarian food in restaurants ‘could be better’ and the options are often ‘bland and boring’.
During Nat...
June Food Column
Tenth birthday celebrations have just taken place for St Ives Farmers’ Market. We hear the event which took place on 18th May was lovely - the town made a fuss, the road was closed, there were tractor rides and ani...
Beer Bonanza!
We were standing in the middle of the busy beer festival marquee chatting away to friends and surrounded by a multitude of delights - real ale, cider, wine, mead and cake.... err, cake?
It was the Cambridge CA...
Ditch The Meat
Gone are the days when being a vegetarian meant wearing your hair in dreadlocks and sporting hemp trousers. Meat-free advocates have finally lost their stereotypical image and as we celebrate National Vegetarian Week fro...
Cambridge Lifestyle
Magazine
Critic's choice
DIY Weddings
Brides in the throes of wedding planning will know that those final finishing touches can spiral out of control in the pursuit of the perfectly styled big day. However, after months of daydreaming about the perfect theme...
Holistic Health
If an apple a day is no longer keeping the doctor away, and taking a cocktail of pills and potions has become part of daily life, then maybe you’ve just learnt to live with your aches and pains…
...
Cambridge Shopping
Magazine
Critic's choice
Festival Fashion
California’s stylish festival Coachella may be over but here in Britain festival season is only just beginning. And whether you end up basking in the summer sun or wading through muddy campsites, celebrities and co...
Cambridge Sports & Outdoor
Magazine
Critic's choice
Punting on the Cam
Punting along the river Cam is the UK’s answer to Venice’s gondolas and when the sun is shining residents and tourists flock to the river for a leisurely afternoon.
Punting along the Backs has been l...
Saving Butterflies and Bees
Our gardens are an important habitat for bees and butterflies but their plight of has been of great concern to wildlife experts over recent years, with numbers of both declining sharply.
This decline is a threat...
A Show for our Times
After the washout of the 2012 Cambridgeshire County Show, the day dawned bright and fair for the 2013 event. Queues of vehicles tailed back to Bassingbourn in the south and to Barton in the east, as hundreds of people de...
On Your Bike
As Cambridge prepares to welcome the Tour De France next year we look at why the city is so great for cyclists. Here are five great places to visit on two wheels.
Milton Country Park
This park just outs...
Cambridge Theatre
Magazine
Critic's choice
Kings of Comedy (+ musicals!)
‘No sex’, Is the quick-witted answer from award-winning playwright Laurence Marks when asked what the secret is to his successful long-running writing partnership with Maurice Gran.
The duo are the b...
Fairies In The Gutter
Ursula Holden Gill is one of the UK’s most innovative, up and coming Storyteller / Musicians. An insightful comedienne, with a voice “like molasses” Ursula has that rare gift of authenticity in her...
Rise and Fall of Little Voice
As a long-term loather of musicals and the razzmatazz side of showbiz, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice ought not to be my thing. But the subject hardly matters when the play is written and directed by Olivier award-win...
Milton's own Treasure Island
Through the winding tracks and tangled trees of Milton Country Park we follow a parade of skipping children, all drawn like moths to a beautifully secluded glade in the middle of the woods. Here, almost 200 children and ...
Farcical Fun
Can a 1980s sitcom be successfully revived as a theatrical comedy drama?
Yes, Prime Minister shunts PM Jim Hacker, his unctuous but conniving civil servant Sir Humphrey and the younger functionary Bernard, into ...
Powerful Parade
A musical about a lynching doesn’t sound like fun. To be fair Jason Robert Brown’s ‘Parade’ does not set out to entertain as much as make us think. It is a dark, disturbing and downright dystopian...
Charley's Aunt
In February 1892 Brandon Thomas’ Charley’s Aunt began its extraordinary and enduring longevity with performances at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds with W.S.Penley in the lead role of Lord Fancourt Babbe...
Theatre Royal: Tours
This summer the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds will be offering tours that take you through the Theatre’s history from its Regency beginnings to the present day.The Theatre Royal is one of Bury St Edmunds’s...
Cambridge Things to do
Magazine
Critic's choice
1940s Society Night
Step back in time for a night of 1940s nostalgia at The Red Lion, Whittlesford! Keep the wartime spirit alive by wearing your vintage glad-rags and dancing to the swing tunes of the Homefront. There's live music from &ld...
City of Culture
The traditional fair is nothing new and early June is the perfect time, a curtain raiser, for summer. This year the Isle of Ely’s Etheldreda Fair, at the cathedral, brings the best of rural charm and also innovatio...
Historic Aviation Adventures
Now that we live in less turbulent times, the Royal Air Force has given way to the Imperial War Museum at the historic 1917-built Duxford aerodrome. The museum stages all kinds of events over the year. Next up is the Spr...
Cultural Celebrations
When we think of local fetes and festivals our brains conjure up images of charity raffles, musty stalls and face painting. But Bury Festival 2013 offered so much more, truly showcasing the best of what Bury and Suffolk ...
Cambridge's secret gems
Are you local to Cambridge but usually too busy to enjoy it? Here are five suggestions for an enjoyable day or two exploring your own city.
Pepys Library - Magdalene CollegeSituated in Magdalene College gr...
Cambridge Travel, talks and tours
Magazine
Critic's choice
Day Trip to Thetford
Thetford’s motto should be ‘Well, I never knew that!’ It is a town of abundant surprises: the birthplace of one of the USA's founding fathers (Thomas Paine), it had Britain's first black mayor in 1903, ...
A day out in Downham Market
Do people really live in gingerbread houses? They do in Downham Market. This Norfolk town might not be on everyone’s day trip agenda but it is well worth a visit for its quirky monuments, strange little alleyways, ...
Travel: Glamping in Norfolk
Announcing to friends and colleagues our plan to spend the weekend in a yurt in the heart of rural Norfolk, our choice of accommodation prompted some rather interesting responses, most of them preceded by a con...
Into the Archives
Prehistoric fossils were the theme of the third Barrington Archive Open Day on Sunday 19 May. An exhibition of work from local primary school children and a fascinating talk about the fossils found in the old cement work...
Holidaying at Home: Norfolk
With the recession affecting us all, we're tightening our purse strings and thinking about every penny we're spending. But that doesn't mean that we’re prepared to do without our summer holiday! Make your money str...
Cambridge Viewpoints
Magazine
Critic's choice
Congestion on the Cam
Half of all localsecrets readers who took part in last week’s survey believe that the river Cam has become ‘too congested’, with an additional 25% of you saying the river is ‘very congested’...
