Hansel and Gretel is the second English National Opera production to be locked into the Open Air's theatre season at Regent's Park. Following the acclaimed operatic production of Henry James's horror novella The Turn of the Screw in 2018, this is Engelbert Humperdinck's 19th century operatic reworking of the Grimmm Brothers' fairytale. As someone n...

The Cotswolds covers an almost 800 square miles that takes in the five English counties of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire. A designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it offers quintessential English country towns and villages of honey-coloured Cotswold stone The Cotswolds also has more than 3,000 mile...

The Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin is a theatre and an ensemble that stages spectacular Las Vegas style productions on a two-year cycle. Commemorating its centenary in 2019, the shows combine extravagant costumes, state-of-the-art stage settings with grand musical and dance numbers interspersed with 'heart-stopping' feats. The current production i...

9/11, two numbers that conjure huge emotional resonance. The al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of Tuesday September 11 2001 - on the World Trade Centre in New York and Pentagon in Virginia - was witnessed by many, many millions who were glued to TVs around the globe. The overwhelming, barbaric, futility of 9/11 tends to be the abiding memory for those who...

Bathing naked, sip sparkling wine and eat schnitzel in the historic German city of Wiesbaden. Certainly, you can make eye contact and even nod in greeting. But, for heaven's sake, don't stare, in neither admiration nor aversion, at anyone's privates or bare backside. Those are my do-and-don't tips for taking the waters naked at Kaiser Friedrich The...

An e-bike is the perfect way to get around Rheingau wine country in Germany. Half-way up the impossibly steep hill to Schloss Johannisberg, I'm suddently grateful I opted for an e-bike. Originally, the plan was for a leisurely peddle on a commuter bike through vineyards in Germany's Rheingau wine region. But when I meet my guide, Claudia Lewerenz, ...