... THE main feature of a double bill which opened at the Close Theatre Club, Glasgow, on April 13, was the premiere of Lunchtime Concert by Olwen Wymark, wife of Patrick Wymark. the actor. And this turned out to be compelling theatre probably the best production yet staged at the Close. It deals with the love-hate re lationship between a refined, but tatty', old woman and her tough, young ...

... Dialogue was pretty abysmal BY N. ALICE IRICK TV/£ SAINT is reputedly Britain's best-selling series abroad. I suppose the fact that it is a straightforward, non-gimmicky suspense story accounts for its popularity. Also, sadly, its predictable segment of physical violence. Bv now Rotrcr Vlnnre a household name, and ATV is on to a good thing. It rings variations on a theme: the Saint surrounded ...

... Brilliant Potter play shocking, disturbing BY MARGARET CAMPBEI.I 1 1 ever there was an argument for the single play it is Where the Buffalo Roam by Dennis Potter (of Nigel Barton fame) in the new Wednesday Play Series on BBC- 1 (November 2). This study of a backward, delinquent Swansea boy of nine teen and his struggles to identify himself (only possible in a dream world of cowboys) was ...

... Noel Coward Exposes Hugo Latymer in Song at Twilight' by R.B. MARRIOTT VEARS ago, a famous novelist 1 wrote a book called Cakes and Ale, in which, it was widely believed, Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole were pilloried. When Walpole. himself a generous, sympathetic, rather humble man. realized that in the character of Alroy Kerr he was being exposed as a pompous, mean-spirited fraud, he ...

... 'THE deepest roots of drama lie in the Greek tragedies, and Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is one of the strongest with its eternal story of incest, murder and guicide. The National Theatre of Greece presented this play at the Aldwych on April 14 as their second production in the World Theatre Season, and one expec ted a well-nigh definitive inter pretation. Alexis Minotis. who also directed, ...

... I WANT you to murder me for £3,000, the strange Mr. Franklyn asks down at heel and out of work Henry Scrubb, who considers the idea. After all, Franklyn said he was dying of an incurable heart disease, but if he was murdered the realisation of his life insurance policy would be doubled. Such is the plot of Derek Benfield's Murder for the Asking, the premiere of which was given at the De La ...

... Poor start to BBC series BY ANN PURSER TTHI Mafia is like an octopus cut off one tentacle and another one grows this is one of Danny Scipio's sentences I did understand in Vendetta, a new series which began on BBC- 1 last Friday. And that being so, I feel I shan't care any more at the end of 363 episodes (or however many there may be) than I did at the end of the first. It is certainly a ...

... Acting is the best part of BBC Scotland's story BY ANN PIJRSFR IT is unfortunate that regional productions nearly always have a theatrical stamp on them --and repertory theatre at that- and I he Great Kopalski by Fulton Mackay (BBC, Friday, November 4, Out of Town Theatre) was probably more so. written by an actor who is busy being an actor at the same time. But a half-hoar play is no tax on ...

... Skilful Anglia adaptation BY DAVID ROBINSON BASIC though the method is to the cinema and to television. 1 think that on all logical grounds one must suspect the principle of adaptation. The chances that a work that has succeeded in one medium will succeed as well or better in another are (judged from results) rather worse than one intends. Prom start to nnisn, i teit tnat Troy Kennedy Martin's ...

... V al doesn't need slick production BY N. ALICE I RICK VTAL DOONICAN is a nice fella. What is more to the point, he has a pleasant, clear, true singing voice, and the clarity of cnnunciation that is a must in a ballad singer. As host and star on his own BBC-1 show, he is the British eauivalent ,>i Andy Williams, a kinship he indirectly acknowledged in his introduction of guest Sheila Hancock, ...

... CUN INTO DARKNESS, a new ballet presented by Western Theatre Ballet at Sadler's Wells on April 13, was meant as a bold attempt to revivify the three- act ballet form, in a story in modern dress and surroundings concerning the strange rites that erupt in the course ot a lolk car nival in the wilds of Cornwall. Built on a scenario by David Rudkin, whose earlier dramatic works have also ...

... Streisand and Tunny Girl' NEVER saw Fanny Brice, the star whom Barbra Streisand mpersonates in Funny Girl, he new Jule Styne-Bob Merrill ihow at the Prince of Wales, but I have seen memorable stars in the realm of musicals, revue and variety; Gertrude Lawrence Beatrice Lillie, uracie fields and Judy Garland outstanding among them: all supremely gifted artists with original personalities ...