... Adventures of Mr Toad Huddersfield Rather than make do with the usual Home Counties accented amphibian, director Damian Cruden has quite rightly chosen a north country Mr Toad for the Lawrence Batley's Christmas entertain ment. He is played with great spirit and a rich summer wine voice by Daniel O'Bnen. Much careful thought has gone into this version of The Adventures of Mr Toad. It has ...

... TRICKY FUSION m fusion between early music and modem jazz is not the easiest thing to accomplish. And so it proves in Extempore (Linn CKD 078), in which the Scottish-based vocal quartet the Orlando Consort meets London-based experimental jazz outfit Perfect plants. Jazz fans are not likely to be well versed in the ninth to 14th century polyphony that is the Consorts normal territory as a ...

... SETTLING THE SCORE Listening to That's Entertain ment's CD reissue of Thomas and the King (CDTER 1009), which opened at Her Majesty's in October 1975 and closed about a fortnight later, gives us a chance to re-evaluate the score written by John Williams. And very impressive it is, conjuring up the period in which the musical is set, the reign of Henry II. But I am not surprised that the show ...

... The John Dankworth and Friends album Moon Valley (ABCD 7) is essentially the same unit which backs Dankworth's cabaret and concert dates with his wife Cleo Laine--John Horler on piano, Allan Ganley on drums and Malcolm Creese, whose own AB label has released the CD, on bass. So there is naturally a cohe sion about the album, with its high proportion of original themes, which comes from play ...

... Still a barrel of fun 50 years on What better way to relax in the glorious summer sun than listen to some music? Peter Hepple tunes in RECORDS REVIEW It is a bit of a shock to realise that it is 50 years since Annie Get Your Gun was first seen in London, but TER's double CD (CDTER2 1229) marks the anniversary in style, with one of the current queens of the American musical stage, Judy Kaye, ...

... Drinking in Circles Hampton Wick In his new play, Robert Sherwood has had the intriguing idea of presenting a modern version of the Faust pact in a film noir context-- a case of Christopher Marlowe meets Philip Marlowe, you might say. Unfortunately, the promise of this idea is not fulfilled at the Rose and Crown, either in the quality of the writing or in Grip Theatre's flat, unexciting ...

... Singing Gay's happy tunes The Songs of Noel Gay Flapper PAST CD 7035 The VE anniversary celebrations brought the music of Noel Gay back into prominence, though it would be a mistake to think he wrote only cheerful, knees-up songs. He could write a romantic bal lad as wen, the best instance on this compilation being You've Done Something to My Heart, which Evelyn Lave sings here to Gerakto's ...

... Jazzy rhythms President Records has recently issued some exceptionally interesting CDs, compiled by Joop Visser, which cover the period when jazz, blues and rock'n'roll were somehow mingled together in what was then called rhythm and blues. The time was the mid-forties, ten years Derore rock'n'roll emerged as a distinct entity in the hands of white performers. The link between Wynonte Hants ...

... McJazz Lives On Sandy Brown (One-Up OU 2092) When Sandy Brown died in March this year, British and, indeed, world jazz lost a strikingly gifted and idiosyncratic musician. These tracks, recorded in the late fifties and early sixties by Denis Preston and mainly released on earlier albums, form an excellent tribute to a man who was not only a clarinettist with an instantly recognisable style but ...

... New theatre centre Steven Berkoff, whose London heatre Group have been per forming at the Greenwich Theatre, has discovered a building in Isling ton which could solve some ofNorth London's theatre problems. In Al- r meida Street, not far from the King's Head, it is Georgian and in very good condition and even used for a short while as a music-hall in the 1840s. There is a basement and another ...

... DISC DATA COUSIN JOE. the veteran blues man from New Orleans, will be celebrating his 70th birthday on December 20 in Europe, which he visited for the first time in 1964 He is doing a number of British dates during the tour, mainly in colleges. but he is at the 100 Club, Oxford Street, on December 12 Jim Simpson of Big Bear Records, Birmingham, who represents Cousin Joe here, has fust ...

... Dream Babies--Girls and Girl Groups of the Sixties (Capitol EG 26 0573 1) If the late sixties and early seventies was the age of the singer/songwriter, the early sixties was the era of the solo singer and vocal group. Just how many of them made a few records and sank out of sight is demonstrated on this fascinating album of disposable trash, the principle being, of course, that even dross ...