... THE PROGRAMME states that The Island of Sugar is an entertainment based on a play by Jobn Hales. The initial inspired concept of taking a play dealing with the ideals and corruption of revolution and political manoeuvering and presenting il as a series of games and fantasies played by children, belong to the producer, Noel Greig. But there is no room for doubt thai the actors and the ...

... THE LITTLE Theatre Club presented two plays by Alan Pearce, judiciously directed by Joan Campbell. In the first play, Love Talk, a suitable marriage is finally fixed after the casual preliminary, approaches have been related to the audience by fragmentary but repetitive dia logue between each party and an olf -stage friend. Peter Sheridan and Mary Sheen took turns with the spot-light to ...

... Thomas More documentary ACCORDING to the programme note by the author. Jean Claudius, every word of Thomas More, presented by the Lambeth Players at the Tower of London on September 16 was compiled either from historical accounts or from the literary works of More himself. This, while ensuring historical accuracy allowing, of course, for the author's admitted chron ological licence taking ...

... 'Rheinaold' VITAGNER'S Der Ring dcs Nibelungen grows in popularity, judging by the number of young people quite a number of them actors-- at Covent Garden on September 11, when the first of this year's two cycles opened with Das Rheingold Tho sheer length and scope of this epic drama demands a religious devotion, or in some cases, amused tolerance, from its audiences who nowadays are ...

... npHE PERFORMANCE of Die Walkiire on September 12 was in almost every way the best at Covent Garden for several seasons, wirh Solti urging the orchestra to magnificent heights of aural excitement in the three preludes, the inexorable urgency of the strings and the rasping brass in the firs* immediately set ting the tone of a performance which started off well and grew progressively even ...

... 'THIS NEW COMEDY, The Secretary Bird by William Douglas Home, which opened at Manchester Opera House last week, exploits another version of the eternal triangle, and does it with sparkle and wit, spiced with a little sauce now and then, in cluding what the first night audi ence regarded as some neat double cnlendres. The middle- aged husband and bored young wife set-up is now very familiar ...

... 'Beggar's Opera' goes 'POP' DIRECT from its Edinburgh Festival triumph, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, has started a London season at the Apollo. This 18th century ballad opera has been revived in a brilliant pop production bv Toby Robertson. It 'is bawdy and satirical in tne mouern manner but the commentaries on corrup tion and human frailty are time less and has relevance to the world ...

... Television parson satirised THE MORAL RE-ARMA- MENT plays which occupy the Westminster nowadays invariably have a message, though it is the contention of this writer that the main drawback has been that the message is vague. However, there is nothing unsnecific about Bishop's Move, which opened on September 12. Alan Thornhil], the most able propa gandist in the MRA, almost thunders his ...

... TAX EVASION through the legal machinations of astute accountants and lawyers is a common phenomenon in presentday society, and Paddy Chayefsky takes this theme into the realms of tragi-comcdy fantasy in his new play The Latent Heterosexual, at the Aldwych on September 16. John Morley, the hero of this nightmarish taste of computerised metaphysics, is a homosexual author with a tax debt so ...

... IN A DOUBLE-BILL last week LAM DA Theatre Club gave an experimental production of the first plays of a former student of LAM DA, Yossi Alfi, now an Israeli actor. Translated from the Hebrew by Lesley HarrodEagles, and well served by a small cast under tne autnor s direction, there emerged two brief sketches of neurotic people. Tomorrow Morning is a two- characler piece showing a ...

... 'The Lyons Mail' REFURBISHED and elaborately extended, Liverpool Playhouse re-opened with three gala performances last week, and got down to real business with the general public as audience, on Tuesday last. Prior to the rise of the curtain tours were made round the theatre which, in addi tion to all the interior alterations and improvements, has had an effective black and white face lift ...

... Bizarre relationship 'tween two French poets by Peter HeDole IF one had not been assured that Christopher Hampton had researched the subject of his play Total Eclipse very thoroughly, there would be a strong temptation to say that he must have invented the bizarre relationship between the poets Verlainc and Kimbaud. The play, which opened at the Royal Court on September II, begins with ...