... YOU Won't Always Be On Top, first seen at the Royal. Stratford, some three years ago, arrived at Unity on August 12 wilh some songs by Barbara Chapman but with all the defects one noticed on the previous occasion. The chief fault is that Henry Chapman's work is not really a play at all. It is more akin to what the television people call a dramatised documentary, dealing as it does with what ...

... TO SAY AU REVOIR before embarking upon their American tour, the Royal Ballet are dancing in full force at the Royal Opera House this week and to celebrate the occasion the proscenium arch has been newly gilded and the dome brightened with a coat of sky-blue paint. Mar got Fonteyn graced Lea Sylphides with her presence on Monday last and translated the poetic ecstasy of Chopin's romantic ...

... pOMMLNTINO on the sudden termination of ihe season at the Westminster of Mal'hilda Beauvoir and her Haitian Voodoo Dancers. Richard Graham, who presented ihem in collaboration with Furndel Productions, stales that throughout the dispute he worked in close con sultation and collaboration with Equity, and that contrary to the impression that may have been con veyed, return fares to Paris for the ...

... by ANTHONY MERRYN MERRIE ENGLAND, that hardy stand-by of amateurs, had a lull and lavish profesional performance in Sadler's Wells on August 10. Edward German was no Sullivan, but he had a nonius and person ality of his own. which has caused (his work to survive on the sheer strength of his tunefulness, music- i.msh p and light touch. Otherwise (he rather naive plot, about Queen Elizabeth. ...

... A VIEW FROM THE BRINK. by David Campion, had its first performance at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, last week. From first to last, these three short plays are consistently funny, with a humour which brings Mr. Canvp- ton's points home with deadly accuracy. The author himself and David Glover appear as two all-too- familiar statesmen, conferring with the all-too-familiar goonery of all ...

... MICHAEL CROFT's Youth Theatre production of Julius Caesar which began a short season it the Oueen's on August II. opens on a note of brilliant unconventionality with teenage Romans living in the streets to the strains of traditional jazz. And with thi^ Mr. Croft transforms v into a tale which b Tiding relevance to MoUcm-UiV ?.ire has often been i pon-- and more times tli. -vith gootl ...

... CRANKO'S COMIC BLOOD- AND-THUNDER BALLET by Eric Johns THE LONDON PREMIERE of John Cranko's music-hall burlesque of Sweeney Todd was given by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden on Tuesday evening last. With tongue in cheek Mr. Cranko has re-told the tale of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, using a highly eloguent dance vocabulary. Most ingeniously he has chosen movements which are the ...

... THE Brighton and Hove Repertory Company were in top form for the opening Ust week of The Gaye Affair, a comedy by J. Barry Roach which concerns a novelist, Gaye by name and nature, particularly where the ladies arc concerned. His generous use of sex and medium has put him in the best-seller class and his publisher as clamouring for the completion of his next novel. He choses a luxury hotel ...

... WHAT she claims to be the first Welsh television puppet series is the creation of Jane Phillips. It all started, the says. when she gave a five-minute glove-puppet show in Welsh last Christinas as part of the BBC's Welsh children's magazine gramme. Telewek, which goes out in the mornings on Satur days. Following (he Initial ven ture, Ifan O. Williams, the pro gramme's producer, invited ...

... THOSE rare birds who have never had the pleasure of seeing Twelfth Night, and all those who have seen it seldom, will enjoy the current Old Vic production by Colin Graham, which is the same as last season but with a new young cast. They will find in Eileen Atkins, the Viola, a young woman of char acter who, with proper guidance and opportunity, should make the grade to an established ...

... by R. B. MARRIOTT YOU should not miss Peter Cotes's fine production of William Inge's A Loss of Roses, with its three brilliant performances in the leading parts, which opened at the Pembroke, Croydon on Monday last. Joan Miller has rarely been better, Jane Griffiths establishes herself as an actress of formidable talent, and Alan Howard gives an outstanding study of youthful frustration ...

... RICHARD GILL'S Travellers, presented by the Repertory Players on Sunday last, has for characters the circus and fairground folk with whom the author, now an actor, once worked. In consequence, the characters and dialogue have an air of authenticity which makes the unsua' and to some extent unfashionable theme dramatically exciting throughout the first act and even succeeds in holding the ...