... Mother's pride is a joy to behold Chichester Coriolanus SURROUNDED as we are by countries facing constitutional crisis, including Italy, as well as significant nationalism and people power, the production of Coriolanus at Chichester Festival Theatre by the Renaissance Theatre Company has many modern connotations. However. stripped to its basics it identifies that pride and courage are ...

... Shadowlands Westcliff-On-Sea SHADOWLANDS, by William Nicholson, tells of the unusual love affair between C S Lewis (the author of the Narnia stories) and Joy Davidman, an American divorcee. The play was directed by Christopher Dunham, designed by Judy Reaves, and presented at the Palace Theatre in Westcliff. Probably because of the inclement weather, the fact that a decisive football match was ...

... The Rules Of The Game Almeida Theatre PIRANDELLO'S story of an eternal triangle between a man, his spouse and her lover leads to a studied game of nonchalance by a husband reduced to the role of a gentleman caller in the life of his wife. This domestic tragedy initially disarms us with the light, iron ic touch of a drawing-room comedy of manners that masks real human anguish. Playwright David ...

... The Great Big Radio Show BUXTON QUESTFEST 92 PERFORMED in a workshop production as part of the Buxton Opera House Quest for New Musicals, The Great Big Radio Show, by Philip Glassborow provided final proof that extravagant sets and a cast of thousands are not the only makings of a musical worth applauding. Good songs and a great cast point ed to the fact that here we have a writ er/composer ...

... Fern Hill Cardiff THE minor industry that feeds on the reputation and works of Wales's most widely known poet, Dylan Thomas, continues to expand. The latest offering comes from the Cardiff-based Sherman Theatre Company. Mike Kenny's Fem Hill is the result of a six-month project undertaken by the writer, director Phil Clark, com poser Paula Gardiner, and design team headed by Jane Linz Roberts. ...

... The Baby Watford JUST as well Jon Canter's first-born full-length stage play is a complete over-the-top comedy, otherwise audiences would be in grave danger of leaving the theatre in deep mourning for modem man. The caricature characters in The Baby are all stressed pieces of driftwood and debris on the snores ot modem society, in need ot both therapy and treatment. At the centre is Helen ...

... Iphigenie en Tauride CARDIFF GLUCK may not be a major draw at the box office, and his masterpiece has little chance of making the CD charts--but what a memorably power-packed night in the theatre Welsh National Opera made of it. The French producers, Patrice Cauner and Moshe Leiser, working in Britain for the first time, eschewed the visual delights of eye-catching sets, attractive costumes, ...

... Revenge of the Story Spirits Pleasance London Jan Blake's work transforms the theatre from a place of conflict to a place of storytelling, and this series of five stories from African folklore, devised and performed by Blake herself, is a real feast. The five are framed by the larger tale of a young man who keeps the stories he hears crammed together in a bag, instead of telling them to others ...

... Original Spin New End This is the type of play I can remember seeing at Golders Green Hippodrome in the late fifties, prior to the West End, a statement sometimes made more in hope than reality. While watching it I actually found myself mentally casting it with leading players of that era. Perhaps there might still be a market for such pleasantly undemanding fare, but I fear not. ...

... My Business is to Love Barbican Hail In this extraordinary compilation about America's enigmatic lyric poet Emily Dickinson, Claire Bloom read her poetry, Renee Fleming sang American composers' adaptations, and the two of them half-read, half-acted William Luce's deft narrative of her life, based on her letters and poems. A figure of Dickinson emerges, glintingly intelligent, her ...

... Small Talk Brockley Jack Writer Dale Reynolds' play is a sometimes engaging, but more often tiresome, attempt to refract the state we are in today in a darkly comic light. Nine disparate characters sit in a pub chatting and bickering. Their random talk reveals a distorted version of the present in which big business, or busy ness as it is known, controls and shapes the world while society ...

... The Angel's Share Dundee/Touring There are two routes into Chris Dolan's new play, produced by Borderline Theatre and here seen at Dundee Rep. On one level, it is about the point of impact at which market-driven forces and modem technology lock horns with dusty traditions in that most hallowed of spots, the whisky distillery. The angel's share is a poetic term for the whisky that is lost ...