... Prostitute and Client MONTROUS REGIMENT I ALWAYS SUSPECTED that theatre audiences, notably the sort one might categorise as committed, much prefer their own text and voices to those provided onstage. The British premiere of an Italian feminist play, Dacia Maraim's script being translated by Gillian Hanna, would appear to prove the point. At three places in the script, the actors swing out ...

... PLAYERS Beauty and the Beast THE BEST pantomime has enchantment, romance, surprise, and an element of humour. This we have in the Players' Beauty and the Beast, a gentle, stylish recreation of the Planche work first seen at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1841. The humour comes with charming touches of comedy, pungently absurd lines, and the celebrated Ptanchd (and Players') pun. The ...

... WINDSOR Jack and The Beanstalk MARY KERRIDGE has turned her writing skills to the most romantic and exciting of all pantomime themes and the Counsell team have worked their usual alchemy to produce perhaps the most effective Christmas show I can recall at Windsor. The first of these two ingredients are in the safe hands of David Heneker, Leslie Julian Jones, John Pritchett, Elizabeth Counsell ...

... READING IT IS, alas, unavoidable to draw comparisons with the superb production of John Morley's Aladdin of a couple of seasons back still so vividly in mind, and to vote the Hexagon's version, directed by Ralph Tobert, workmanlike rather than inspired, both in execution and casting. While the intricate superstructure that dominates the theatre's stage can be very effectively deployed to ...

... WATFORD THE YEARLY pantomimes at the Palace masterminded by actor/writer Peter John have earned themselves a reputation second to none. And this year's offering, the delightful Mother Goose, played by Peter John himself, is no exception. What is so exceptional about the talents of John is that he successfully manages to combine a pantomime with a message of the triumph of good over evil ...

... GUILDFORD IT MUST be an infinite source of consolation to pantomime casts that there are many people scattered around the auditorium who are hearing it all for the very first time. The new patrons, and the old, found Guildford's Robinson Crusoe much to their liking. There was a good mixture of fun, slap and romance, pood and evil in a traditional job economising in storyline and supporting ...

... The Barry Cheese Laughter Show BARRY ISLAND POPULAR Northern-based comedian Barry Cheese returns for the seventh successive season to top the bill at Barry Island Holiday Resort's Tuesday night family laughter show in the Gaiety Theatre. As in previous years his good, clean off-the-cuff comedy keeps young and old continuously laughing loud and long at a barrage of mainly-new jokes specially ...

... Thp Pro's and thp con's WAKEFIELD A WELL-TITLED play, The Pro's and the Con's, presented by Stanley Sher Entertainments Ltd, was given its premiere at Wakefield's Theatre Royal and Opera House. Author Seymour Sherman says that as a playwright his main aim is to entertain. So if Page Three is your idea of entertainment. then this light-hearted sex romp is for you. The action takes place in the ...

... Behind every man CARDIFF Hitler's Women INEVITABLY the 100th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth should spawn a clutch of TV documentaries, rerunning the usual over-exposed film clips of the rise of such an unlikely candidate to become the all-powerful dictator of Germany and involve the world in its most cataclysmic war. But there was nothing so predictable or routine about the ...

... The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd LEICESTER WHEN I FIRST read D H. Lawrence's The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd I found it so compelling that I just had to continue with it. I expected to get something akin to that feeling from the Leicester Haymar- ket production of the Lawrence classic, but somehow the tension and electricity of this powerful work wasn't there for me. Certainly there were some very good ...

... EXETER Three Men In A Boat A JOINT production by the Northcott Theatre in Exeter and the Riding lights Company of York, Three Men In A Boat is light hearted Summer fare, which ambles along like a lazy dog on the riverbank. Paul Burbridge s adaptation features all the well known anecdotes, some are acted out, some in the form of a monologue from Arthur Bostrom, appearing as the author, Jerome K ...

... Snow good to be back SNAP THEATRE COMPANY The Snowman WHEN children laugh without the customary pantomimic exhortations it is ample evidence that the players are communicating the reality of young people's thoughts and experiences. The Snowman was adapted from Raymond Briggs, illustrated book by Andy Graham, whose theatrical vision clearly saw a marvellous stage story for children. His vision ...