... BALLET PROMS PROM enthusiasm occasionally seems to have little to do with the quality of the music being played, but the large number of floor-squatters in the seatless stalls area at Covent Garden at last week's two Ballet Proms certainly had something worthy of their cheers. On April 2 they had a powerful reading by Colin Davis of the Rite of Spring score, dominating the action on stage ...

... Delights of 'Mignon' IT IS perhaps understandable why Thomas's opera Mignon no longer holds a place on our stage, with its plot about a girl stolen by gipsies and eventually reunited with her father after a series of far-fetched coincidences. But it does contain much attractive music, quite apart from the familiar numbers like Je suis Titania and Connais-tu le Pays?, and the Court ...

... Irish premieres THE IRISH Ballet Company's second programme will be premiered at the Abbey, Dublin on May 28, when the works to be presented are Timeless Echoes, by Domy Reiter- Soffer, Peter Darrell's Bieder- meier dances and Grand Pas Gitane; Loveraker, also by Domy Reiter-Soffer, to music by Isang Yun; and West Cork Ballad, by Joan Denise Moriarty. All except the last are first ...

... Rameau THE MONTEVERDI Choir Society on March 29 presented a concert performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall of Rameau's Les FStes d'H£b£, in which there are three stories, one for each act, as we would say, or entrie as Rameau's librettist described the division. The music is lively and each number is less predictable in shape than the formality of da capo aria we have grown accustomed to in ...

... COLISEUM-ROYAL DANISH BALLET THE ROYAL Danish Ballet is one of the few really great dance companies, with a perfection of style and technique running through the entire ensemble from the corps de ballet to the principals. Their visit last week to the Coliseum was only their third to London and six days is too short a time for a company of such quality, par ticularly as they played ...

... IN A WELL-REASONED programme note to Dr. Angelus, which Pitlochry Festival introduced as its second producion of this season on April 22, a claim is made that a reassessment of James Bridie may reveal him as a dramatist who has something for the 1970's. The light in which it is sug gested this may develop is in the reaction of modern audiences to Bridie's revelation of the complex ...

... THE BUSH 'A NAVAL OCCASION' IF NOTHING else, an actor should be able to write effectively for other actors, and this Henry Woolf does with a true theatrical flourish in A Naval Occasion, at the Bush. In fact, one could say that Mr Woolf specialises in that very English art of the tirade, which is a bit unnerving at close quarters. A Naval Occasion is apparently about the English need to ...

... Personality of the Week PETER STEVENSON is one of the most gifted and interesting young directors to emerge in recent years, and his latest production, of Nightlight at the King's Head Theatre Club. Islington, shows to striking ad vantage his feeling for at mosphere and ability to build it up, his subtle and telling arran gement of movement and posi tion, his imaginative way with detail, which ...

... KING'S HEAD--'NIGHTLIGHT' IN KENNETH H. Brown's Nightlight, at the King's Head Theatre Club, Islington, old Rae, American-Italian, deserted by her husband, idle toper The Reb, and Ferri and E. W., married, if not happily at least for years on an even level of non-understanding, are liv ing their uneventful lives in an apartment house in New York city. They are poor and humdrum, but ...

... Hampstead 'Bodywork' A PLAY by Jennifer Phillips, Bodywork, opens at Hamp stead Theatre Club on May 22, with Snoo Wilson directing, designs by John Halle and cos tumes by Frances Haggett. The cast includes Polly Adams, Joanna Dunham, Robert Lloyd and Michael Scholes. Press: Chris Gower, 722 9224. ...

... ROBERT MORLEY IN 'GHOST ON TIPTOE' R.B. MARRIOTT REVIEWS OF COURSE, the part fits him like a glove. He helped to tailor it. Of course, he is at the centre of the play all the time. He helped to make it. As the leading character he is irascible, lovable, greedy, perversely generous, a father scorned by an unworthy son. Thus, once again, we have Robert Morley in a domestic comedy. It is A ...

... Hampstead A NtW venture in nampsieau called the Three Horse Shoes Company is launching lunch- time pub theatre, starting with Go On Jump by Brian Com port on May 6. Cast comprises David Bailie and Michael Graham Cox and performances will take place at 1.15 at the Three Horse Shoes pub in Heath Street, Hampstead. The following week sees Kissed with a Loving Seal by Eric Paice with John Dunn ...