Dorset County Show (Saturday 4, Sunday 5)

Experience a truly wild day out for the whole family at this year’s Dorset County show where, as well as the usual menagerie of amazing animals, ‘wolfman’ Shaun Ellis, will be showing his fearsome but beautiful pack creatures.

The former commando will no doubt be one of the star attractions when the country comes to town at the annual two-day extravaganza on the showground just outside Dorchester.

Show secretary Sam Mackenzie-Green said: “The Wolfman has raised three wolf cubs. He was their pack leader. He taught them how to eat meat, how to howl, how to behave in the wild. He’s got something about him – he’s a character.”

The show, now in its 169th year, will include traditional stands with livestock and horticulture competitions and displays.

Other crowd-pleasers include the Diggerland JCB Stunt Team, known as the Dancing Diggers and Titan the Robot, a giant 55-stone android.

There will be the Exeter X Factors, Flyball relay-racing dogs, mounted games and a new small farmers’ market, with local food producers who have not traded at the Dorset County Show before.

The showground is one mile outside Dorchester just off the A35, between Grey’s bridge and the Stinsford roundabout.

A bus service will be running frequently from Dorchester to the showground from 7.35am to 5.08pm.

• dorsetcountyshow.co.uk.

Viennes swirls - The Vienna Proms with The National Concert Orchestra of Great Britain (Monday 6)

Based on the wonderful ‘summer night’ concerts given in Vienna, this is a full program of popular melodies of Strauss and other great Austrian composers of the Romantic period. The concert opens with the gorgeous Die Fledermaus and throughout, features a host of famous Strauss Waltzes and Polkas including The Blue Danube, Tritsch Tratsch Polka, Vienna Blood and many more. It closes in the traditional manner, with the rousing Radetsky March.

• Pavilion Theatre, Bournemouth Making waves - Animal Windfest (Friday 10-12)

As the only free daytime beach sports festival in the UK, with three nights of ticketed evening parties, it’s no wonder Windfest attracts the biggest names in the extreme sports industry and at least 10,000 visitors each year.

Going skyward for the first time ever, it will play host to the Red Bull Matadors who’ll stage an exhilarating air display and two sports new to the festival also join them, Ultimate Beach Frisbee and Surf Skiing.

Fans of Stand Up Paddle boarding (SUP) can enter a new distance paddle around Brownsea Island that’s open to anyone and will run separately to the professionals SUP race earlier in the day.

Organiser, Gary Willingham says: “The favourite aspects of the event continue to be in place, while exciting new additions to the schedule have been agreed, such as the Red Bull Matadors.

Showcasing beach and watersports which have not been seen competitively here before will hopefully give further entertainment and attract visitors.”

Other features throughout the two days include professional kite-surfing and windsurfing competitions, have-a-go trials for amateurs, fun slalom racing, Animal Bike Show, King Ramps’ skate ramp, wakeboarding slider pools, equipment demos and a Kids Zone with live acoustic music.

• animalwindfest.co.uk

A world-class performance Jennifer Pike at Canford School (Friday 17)

Renowned violinist Jennifer Pike is already a regular at many of the world’s major concert venues and accustomed to performing live broadcasts to thousands.

So no surprise that the Canford Concert Society is delighted that she has found time to play at Canford before heading for Japan and her debut appearance there. Jennifer has played with the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, City of London Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony and Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg to name but a few. She’s only 20 years old and managing to combine just short of 50 performances each year with her music degree studies at Oxford! Many will remember Jennifer as the winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year contest in 2002 - the youngest ever winner of the competition.

• canfordschool.com

A bit of a farce - Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce (Monday 20 –25)

Hollywood husband and wife Maxwell Caulfield and Juliet Mills head an all-star cast in Peter Hall’s critically-acclaimed production of Ayckbourn’s play.

Trevor and Susannah have a problem relationship, which requires urgent attention. What better solution than to talk it over with family and friends? Preferably in their respective bedrooms and ideally in the middle of the night. Inevitably, one problem relationship tends to spark off another. When you have friends like Trevor and Susannah, nobody gets much sleep.

Juliet Mills, daughter of John Mills and sister of Hayley, leads the tour-de-force cast alongside her Caulfield.

he action famously focuses on four couples in three bedrooms, with two celebrations, one blazing row and an illicit kiss (or two)! Alan Ayckbourn’s ingenious comedy shines a brilliant spotlight onto the trials and tribulations of suburban marriage.

• Lighthouse, Poole

Singing along - The Lighthouse Big Sing (Sunday 26)

Love to sing? Then join the Lighthouse Big Sing performance. Singers of any age and experience can become part of a massed choir performance of Carl Orff’s celebrated Carmina Burana (version for 2 pianos and percussion) with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and players from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, all under the baton of the BSC’s new music director, Gavin Carr.

The project is part of Count Me In, a region-wide celebration of music, dance and outside arts developed for the Cultural Olympiad in the run up to London 2012. Lighthouse hopes to attract more than 500 singers from across the region to take part, and are looking for children, adults, choruses and choirs, as well as more experienced singers for solo parts.

Rehearsal sessions are on Wednesday 8th and Sunday 26th with the full performance in the Concert Hall also on Sunday 26th.

• Tickets and registration forms from the Lighthouse 0844 406 8666