... Cruel Garden LFB THERE ARE two scenes in Cruel Garden at Sadler's Wells which drive the audience into a state of frenzy: when the matador fights the bull and, later, when the matador fights on alone. In both, speed, shape and desire for power order the dance. The matador is Lorca, poet of the oppressed. The bull is authoritorian- ism and with his victory, following the goring of the poet ...

... PAIGNTON TORBAY Entertainments Manager, Vanessa Hart, believes in catering for out of season and well as summer season customers. Michael Rose's touring ver sion of seemed a good choice. The sunny, well tested show would seem perfect for spring, but somehow it seemed a bit lost in the vast Festival Theatre at Paignton. There is nothing wrong with Michael Rose's production, which has an ...

... RIVERSIDE Chairperson THAT late 20th century taboo, the mental or physical handicap, has attracted a decent amount ol serious playwriting over the past years, from Joe Egg and The Elephant Man to experimental work by David Cregan. Geoff Bullen's Chairperson has had considerable success in the regions but this production by Jay Vaughan is a London 'first'. It scores on another count. Mark ...

... OFFSTAGE DOWNSTAIRS Swimming Pools At War A 'LIVE' window display in a garden centre, somewhere in the South of France, forms the unusual setting for this plav by French writer Yves Navarre, and it proves to be an ingenious ploy. For the play presents both a colourful impression of the extravagant way of life outside the store, and a clever explora tion of the relationships that develop when a ...

... COVENT GARDEN Ariadne auf Naxos A STRIKING new production of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos by the French director, Jean-Louis Martinoty, given at Covent Garden in association with the Paris Opera, was remarkable for the recognition that the work is essentially an improvised performance in a private house. Thus we have no realistic scenic suggestion of a cave on a lonely island. Ariadne and her ...

... A Murder Is Arranged WIMBLEDON WIMBLEDON Theatre continues its courageous fight for survival with Mark Furness' latest presentation of the ubiquitous Mrs Christie, packaged with a stylish Proscenium Publications programme, plentifully illustrated, containing an erudite and well-researched article on the thriller genre by David Cheshire called Be Thrilled Be Chilled, which is at least as ...

... The art of the matter GERARD van WERSON on an artist's relation to 'real life' ALMEIDA When We Dead Awaken IBSEN'S last play--famouslj acclaimed by the young James Joyce as his finest, and although dense anc packed with thought--It is just tt prevent excessive pondering that Ibser requires to be acted--is given a fine production here, with an arresting Expressionist set by Peter J Davison ...

... Othello OFF-BROADWAY WITHOUT gimmicks and with a virtually unknown cast, William Gas- kill has proved that, with the right direction, American actors can provide a satisfying and gripping production of Shakespeare. Othello, presented by Theatre for a New Audience mainly for schools at the CSC Theatre is staged in the round, with no scenery and minimal props, but with excellent costumes by ...

... You're Gonna Be Alright Jamie Boy ETCETERA SHARP Edge Theatre company is a newly formed group who specialise in turning profits into plays by deploying the proceeds of a retailing fashion business into shows like the British premiere of You're Gonna Be Alright Jamie Boy by Canadian playwright David Freeman--who is a cerebral palsy sufferer. The play caused a furore when it was first ...

... The play with a musical that's just dying to get out PARIS La Famme du Boulanger WITH SHOWS currently opening in Paris at the rate of two a week, and closing at the rate of one a month, Jerome Savary's La Femme du Boulanger, at the Theatre Mogador, is one that looks like adding commercial success to critical acclaim. Even the poster is a hit. Amidst the archaic letterpress handbills that ...

... The Ass RIVERSIDE WITH the notable exception of the Hampstead Theatre production of The Daughter-in-Law, the London theatre has done little to mark the centenary of D. H. Lawrence. All the more reason, then, to welcome The Ass, the latest music theatre work by Kate and Mike Westbrook, whose worth has yet to be fully recognised, possibly because they fall into a not easily definable ...

... Camille COMEDY WHETHER as a novel, a film, a ballet or an opera, the story of Camille has exercised a powerful fascination for over 130 years. Put at its baldest, it is a tale of a poor girl, forced by circumstance to become a high-class whore, who genuinely falls in love with a well-born VUUllg UUUI j to VVIJipv.uvu y *jj wf force of circumstance, to give him up and dies a consumptive's ...