... expect nor particularly want to. When the curtain rose on Das Rheingold at Covent Garden this week, a largely non- German-speaking public were committed to 16 hours of Teutonic philosophising in the original tongue, and an annual ritual which raises, in ...

... undeveloped, uncon trolled and untrained. She is also lumbered with a chubby Florizel whose ardency lies only in the words he speaks. Jim Dale, a most engaging character, plays Autolycus as a sort of music-hall link be tween audience and stage. Fair enough ...

... in simplicity of mimed expression, often reminds one of those Continental cartoons on the telly, where the characters never speak, but merely emit the occasional grunt or squeak to bolster-up the equally peculiar sound-effects. This is comedy of the rarest ...