Entertainment & Reviews

Just last month Brits were flocking to the travel agents in a last ditched attempt to get some sun.

Throughout our supposed summer England had seen nothing but rain and grey skies.

However, for the last few weeks we have been experiencing a heat wave, and on 7 July, Exeter experienced temperatures similar to those in Turkey.

'The Guardian' reported at the beginning of the month that the rise in temperature has seen a rise in retail sales. Playsuits, shorts and bikinis are finally being sold after sitting on the shelves during the previous cold months....

The Royal Opera House will be beaming Tosca, via a seven metre screen, with a downlink from a satellite and a “huge” sound system, says concert organiser and host Paul Chivers who lives at Talaton House, in the centre of the village. Paul’s garden will be transformed into a huge picnic site, as 500 guests arrive to eat, drink and listen to opera.

Admission is free, but only by allocated tickets which all went in a week and was massively oversubscribed. The village shop was the booking office. “It’s been a real community effort,” said Paul who is keen to support the village church....

BBC One’s ever-popular Sunday evening programme Antiques Roadshow will be filming for its 36th series on Exeter Cathedral Green on Thursday 12 September, 2013.

Presenter Fiona Bruce says, “This will be my 6th year on the Antiques Roadshow and I still feel so lucky to be presenting the programme. Every week is different; a new location and thousands of new visitors. The only constant is the pleasure of the unexpected – we never know what will turn up, from the most fabulous Fabergé to the most humble object with a riveting story..."

Some of Britain’s leading antiques and...

What do you get if you combine a gazebo, old curtains and a telescope lens?... A DIY space ship? Or maybe an observatory? Well… what if I told you it creates a walk-in camera obscura! The photographer Sam White has recently been fascinating the general public up and down the South West with his hand-built camera obscura in which he has combined portraits of local visitors with the stunning South West landscape. The Exeter Daily decided to find out more about his most recent obscura projects and where you can next have the opportunity to climb into and discover this...