Local News

The gypsies of Romania, the magical shapeshifting underground inhabitants of Russia and the crying dolls of Poland will be conjured in Exeter through the power of storytelling and performance.

Wonder & Dread: Slavic Tales of Foreign Lands and Wild People is organised by University of Exeter academic Dr Bryan Brown. The event brings together local, national and international artists to reimagine the mythic tales of wild people and uncanny creatures popular in Slavic countries for generations, and explore the themes of migration, knowledge, technology and wildness. Performers...

East Devon’s Cotley Farm’s welcomed a baby reindeer to the herd in May this year.

It’s rare for baby reindeer to be born in this country – and to survive, as the survival rates are not high over the first few months. The last calf the farm are aware of being born in the Westcountry was in Cornwall in 2010.

Cotley’s owner Helen Bowker said, “It was a bit of a surprise all round to be honest. We hadn’t thought Spice was young enough to be in calf and she’d always been a bit tubby but we knew there was an outside chance. However, she had shown no signs of labour in the morning...

The University of Exeter’s a cappella group Semi-Toned has won a tense sing-off against rival student band Sweet Nothings, and were chosen to represent the South West in Gareth Malone’s TV search for the nation’s most talented and entertaining amateur choir.

All-male group Semi-Toned vocally squared up to the all-female group Sweet Nothings, with both singing electrically charged versions of Britney Spears’ …Baby One More Time for Gareth to judge as part of his series The Choir: Gareth’s Best in Britain. View their riff-off on the BBC’s YouTube channel.

Gareth gave feedback...

People across the South West are being urged to back a hard-hitting initiative to save Stop Smoking Services from closure, as new figures released today (Wednesday) reveal dangerous funding cuts. A new joint report by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and Cancer Research UK found that 57 per cent of local authorities in the South West were forced to reduce their smoking cessation budgets in the last year, putting these vital services – and thousands of lives - at risk. With repeated Government cuts to councils’ public health budgets, over the last three years, findings from the report...