... Siren SYDNEY IN THE past, David Williamson has taken his responsibilities so seriously that one might say his plays set out to be moralities upon which he then tackled generous doses of wit. With Siren, he s broken tree to write an out-and-out comedy of manners, which manages to have a fair dose of morality sliced in. It is all the better for it. Characters and situations have enough proximity ...

... Invisible Friends SCARBOROUGH MASTER playwright Alan Ayckbourn proves he is as much at home writing a modern style of pantomime as he is penning award winning adult comedies, with his latest play which had its world premiere at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. Beneath the slick 1980s style dia logue lies the traditional panto theme good overcoming evil. Ayckbourn's subtle treatment of the subject ...

... The Duchess of Malfi STRATFORD WEBSTER's dark revenge tragedy sits as naturally in the RSC's Swan Theatre as though it had been written for it. In Fotini Dimou's design a great, gilded doorway leads the actors through to a bare, shiny-black stage, which can be cut off from the rear of the 'court' by a full-length curtain to create the intimate space of a private chamber or drawn aside to ...

... Exchange SOUTHAMPTON YURI Trifonov's Exchange, which is receiving its British premiere at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, has been an almost permanent fixture on the Moscow stage since it was first produced in 1976. Russian audiences have acknow ledged the play's wryly honest por trayal of modern Soviet life, based as it is on Moscow's chronic housing shor tage. But the play's concerns are ...

... Charlotte's Web Chfsttr ARTISTIC director, Jeremy Raison chose the British premiere of Charlotte's Web, EB White's story adapted by Joseph Robinette, with music and lyrics by Charles Strouse for a six week festive season at Chester Gateway. Already all box office records have been broken. This production scintillates as it tells of Wilbur the Pig saved from butchery by his spider benefactress ...

... Rack Your Brain OVAL HOUSE IN NO time at all we are sucked into the weird suburbia inhabited by the even weirder Twogood family in this escapist comedy created by members of the Oxford based Round The Hat Rack theatre company. After working in a supermarket all week Alison, Alec and Malvina retreat to their semi and the fantasies that free them from their dull existence. End less rounds of ...

... Home STRATFORD (ONTARIO) FIRST SEEN in 1970 with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson in the leading roles, David Storey's play Home has had few significant revivals since then, yet may well turn out to be one of the major successes of this year's Stratford Festival. Compassionately directed by Marti Maraden at the Avon Theatre, it has in James Blendick and Nicholas Pennell, two stalwarts of ...

... Live Theatre Youth Day SWANSEA IN RECENT months the administrators of the Grand Theatre, Swansea, have been striving manfully to enlist the support of big business and Industry in the matter of an Executive Club and possible sponsorship schemes. It has not overlooked, however, that most of the future support for the theatre must come Irom its citizens. With this in mind it has encouraged ...

... Look Back In Anger EDINBURGH WITH ITS dingy characterless setting and totally straight style of direction, the Lyceum's revival of John Osborne's devastating benchmark dra ma seems set on emphasising how unrevolutionary it is now. The play's three acts and crass theatrical effects like Jimmy's offstage trumpet play ing and the identical scenes which open Acts One and Three certainly show its ...

... Carers EXETER IT IS refreshing to see some hard style campaigning in a theatrical form. Carers, by Lyn Ferrand, is about the people who provide home care for the chronically ill. It asks questions to which there seem to be no answers, but it certainly raises the issues. The fact is that looking after a permanently ill relative is a full time job and a personal sacrifice. In many cases it is ...

... Educating Rita LEEDS THE FIRST play to be presented in the Leeds Grand Theatre Studio is an excellent production of Willy Russell's Educating Rita, directed by Robert March. It is presented by the Leeds Actors Company, a new professional group, working on a profit sharing basis, and aiming to bring exciting theatre to the city. This amusing, yet at the same time moving study of the ...

... Galileo MANCHESTER BERTOLT Brecht's exposition on the power of knowledge over ignorance remains sadly more relevant than ever Though Galileo discovered that the sun is the centre of our solar system in the early part of the seventeenth century, a recent Sunday Times headline stated that one in three secondary school children thmk the sun spins around the earth. Brecht's play asserts that ...