... The Scatterin' DUBLIN JAMES McKENNA's rock'n'roll musical is set in the Dublin of 1958, but the dreams and frustrations of his working class Teds are curiously contemporary. Change the songs cover versions of hits by Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and Elvis Presley and the costumes, and it could just as easily be 30 years later. Frank Hallinan Flood's excellent first act set suggests a Dublin of ...

... Playing against the odds PETER HEPPLE on a charmingly youthful musical revival REGENT'S PARK Babes In Arms THE MOST interesting feature of the Rodgers and Hart musical Babes in Arms is in discovering the context of some of their best songs. For example, My Funny Valentine, usually crooned by a male singer outside its original setting, turns out to be a song sung by a girl to a boy named- ...

... The Met Season NEW YORK NUREYEV'S Paris Opera Ballet was at the Met, he was also at the State Theatre (with New York City Ballet) and on tour with his 'Friends', and the Opera's ballet students were at Juilliard. It was a three-week feast of dance. The season at the Met began dis appointingly, with Isabellc Guerin, Laurent Hiiaire and seemingly most of the company off-form in Nureyev's ...

... SiqNora Joyce New End Theatre IN 1904 AT the age of 20 a young chambermaid, Nora Barnacle, leaves Ireland to wander Europe with James Joyce. Years later when she returns to Ireland her mother says to her, You've travelled far Nora Barnacle, but you've lost yourself somewhere. The Irish Company's production, directed by Deb Jones, explores this journey in an attempt to evaluate exactly what ...

... 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 ...

... Barnstorming killjoys HIGHBURY FIELDS A Midsummer Night's Dream THE INTERNATIONAL Footsbarn Travelling Theatre cheerfully tramples all over Shakespeare's text in its barnstorming approach to the Bard which opens the London International Festival of Theatre. Instead the emphasis is on gaudy surface trappings, while the protracted comic sequences provide a classic case of the actors having ...

... The Garden Venture The Judgment Of Paris/Echoes/The Panic RIVERSIDE THESE three brief pieces set their composers and librettists enormous tasks: who, apart from Puccini and a handful of names, has managed to be incisive and beautiful or memorable within such a short span? It is part of the fascination of these short pieces to watch the attempt. Perhaps the most successful is Paris (composer ...

... Margot La Rouge (Delius) Les Mamelles de Tiresias (Poulenc) GUILDHALL SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND DRAMA VISITTNG the Guildhall is always an adventure. The productions and repertoire rarely fail to interest. Their current double bill is no exception. Delius Margot La Rouge ts an oddity. Unlucky cop, Thibault, dis covers childhood sweetheart Marg uerite in a bar frequented by prosti tutes, only to be ...

... English National Ballet Triple bill COLISEUM ENGLISH National Ballet may be a company reborn under the directorship of Ivan Nagy but, to judge from the poor attendance at the Coliseum last week, it is not yet a company revitalised. New names and new works--irr a bill that included Ronald Hynd's Sanguine Fan, Vicente Nabrada's Our Waltzes and the company premiere of Anne Frank are not ...

... Summer madness NEWBURY Cold Comfort Farm HAVING seen Paul Doust's Edinburgh hit Lady Bracknell's Confinement, artistic director Jill Fraser commissioned him to adapt Stella Gibbons' famous work. Thoroughly ton-gue-in-cheek, his world premiere seems well suited for her little theatre and its delightful gardens (one duction set partially outside is, not sur prisingly, an annual occurrence ...

... The Patriot Game DUBLIN ANOTHER reheated Irish stew is served up in the Peacock Theatre's production of Tom Murphy's The Patriot Game. The unbroadcast 1965 television play imposes, like its big brother upstairs, a contemporary mindset on old guard Ideals. Here the concept is a bunch of actors sitting around a seedy rehearsal hall performing historic tableaux seemingly from a book called The ...