SPEAKING as a member of Gothic Chicken (Jolly Sailor, Portland, Saturday), I am always keen to hear news from fellow occupants of the chicken world, so you can readily imagine my delight at being able to inform you that a Bank Holiday weekend of, ahem, 'fowl play' is on the cards with the intervention of the Frank Chickens (Dorchester Arts Centre, Monday, 7.30, £6/£4.50 concessions, tickets on (01305) 266926). The Frank Chickens first took wing in 1984 ... heavily influenced by Wishbone Ash, Egg, Yolko Ono, etc ... performing songs like Simply The Breast, I Should Be So Clucky, I Owe You Stuffing, Little Deuce Coop, etc ... Yes, I'll stop now. The truth of the matter is that the Frank Chickens put Japan on the global music map with their debut single We Are Ninja, an irresistibly quirky oriental oddity which received a good deal of exposure at the time on programmes like The Tube, as I recall. Their debut album, We Are Frank Chickens, is charmingly described on the band's website (www.mohoho.demon. co.uk) in these terms: 'This record pride of Japan. Treasure of the world.' A host of charming, indescribable and appropriately inscrutable records soon followed: Blue Canary ('John Peel praised this as No. 1 song in history', claim the Chickens), Yellow Toast, Do The Karaoke, etc. These days, the Chickens are often to be found in the company of Ridiculusmus, the award-winning theatre group with whom they will be staging their revue rawsushicabaret in Dorchester - in TOTOHHH HAMMMONNEE, to paraphrase the current (vaguely insulting) TV advert for Tchai tea by Liptons. Sorry, Riptons. As an antidote to the stultifying formalities of orthodox theatre this promises to be hard to beat, and if you haven't yet experienced the singular joys of a Frank Chickens performance I would suggest you rectify forthwith ... Incidentally, on your way to the arts centre, you might want to stop off for a cup of tea and a sponge finger in the park, where you will find The Crack (Dorchester Borough Gardens, Monday, 3-5pm, free admission), brought to you by Dorchester Town Council as part of their highly commendable, eclectic programme of free alfresco concerts. More power to all the elbows concern-ed, and long may this trend continue. After all, if you've got a gazebo, it seems churlish not to use it. I live for the day when we can see Placebo supported by Morcheeba in the gazebo. While we're handing out plaudits willy-nilly, congratulations are seriously due to John Mark of local lurve gods Honey (King's Arms, Dorchester, tonight, Excise House, Weymouth, Saturday, Weymouth Esplanade, Monday, Rendezvous, Weymouth, Tuesday) who has won a place in the enormously prestigious Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. We say 'well held, sirrah', and pass on our best wishes to the other four members of Honey, all of whom are relocating to London in September. Just to recap, Honey won the Wessex FM Battle of the Bands last year, overcame the weather to enthral an audience of a few thousand 'tired and emotional' revellers for two years' running at the Hope Square New Year's Eve celebrations, built up a towering local fan base which has now spread to Bournemouth, Poole, Winchester, Glastonbury and Bristol and - lest we forget - won my 'local band most likely to' accolade several times over, including this one. Catch them before they up sticks, and congratulate them yourselves ...