Emma Dolman reports on some of the great things Cornerstone have been up to recently

We’ve been having a great time here at Cornerstone since I last posted!

Bumper audiences have been watching our shows, doing our classes and viewing our exhibitions, which is brilliant.

We love what we do and always strive to get the very best artistic experiences for customers – so we love it when you love it too!

And the sun is coming out – just a little bit – so we’ve got our eyes on our summer season brochure which is coming out at the end of March. Buds are budding, comedy is fizzing, sap is rising, toes are tapping.

My colleague and I ventured to Bristol last week on a recce of other venues and how they do what they do.

We like to keep our eye in and make sure we are not operating in isolation.

We picked a dry day and walked the length and breadth of that fair city. At the end I had a big blister on the ball of my foot, and really needed the stretch of yoga, but I am pleased to report that Cornerstone measures up very nicely to the artistic output westward-ho in one of the most vibrant centres for the arts in the country.

We are getting a lot of nationally touring performances that you’d see on the programmes of bigger venues, we’ve got a massive classes programme to more than equal what Bristolians can get up to in their spare time and our visual arts offering is very inspiring. Back home we’re also really developing our outreach programme.

So what we do in the district isn’t only confined to what happens at Cornerstone the venue (lovely though that is). In the next few weeks we’ve got an amazing show developed by Frozen Light theatre company especially for teenagers with profound and multiple learning disabilities. It’s a stunning multi-sensory production fusing live music, sign and movement and we are reaching out to young people from across the district and beyond to come to it with their carers, friends and families.

And in April, some of the performers on our Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra concert are offering workshops on the history and origins of jazz to local schools. So my colleague James is busy ringing round spreading the word to teachers.

And since this column is called Stage Whispers, I must mention the show we are all whispering about – the ultimate behind the scenes expose of Marilyn Monroe. The film ‘My Week with Marilyn’ was a huge hit when it was released three years ago – showing behind the scenes during The Prince and The Showgirl filming. Well, our show The Unremarkable Death of Marilyn Monroe is even more revealing.

It depicts Marilyn alone in her bedroom in dressing gown and slippers.

She’s vulnerable but it’s not mawkish. Instead, this incredible one-woman show, which has won heaps of praise, reveals all the main players in Marilyn’s life and shows her as a scarred but formidable actress and woman.

The ultimate stage whisper and one I am not going to miss.