... 'BREEZEBLOCK PARK' AT THE MERMAID Peter Hepple reviews Opened September 12 WILLY RUSSELL deserves the highest praise for writing a play about that trickiest of subjects, the affluent working class, an area of high sensitivity if ever there was one. In Breezeblock Park here they all are, gathered together for a family Christmas--Betty, Syd and Sandra;? Betty's brother Tommy and his wife Vera; ...

... Best-ever booking DICK CONDON'S pantomime Cinderella and the Magic Slipper for the Norwich Theatre Royal, already boasts bookings more than 100 per cent in excess of those placed up to this time last year. Costing £155,000, it will star Paul Henry of Crossroads fame, as Buttons, and director Yvonne Marsh as Prince Charming. Australian ballet dancer, Petal Miller, who brought Stars of the ...

... Macbeth WAREHOUSE IF ANYBODY doubts the power of Shakespeare as a playwright, or for that matter the current acting strength of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a visit to Trevor Nunn's production of Macbeth at the? Warehouse should clinch the matter, for here is a staggeringly simple staging by a small company which has an almost frightening impact. Of course, the size of the theatre helps, ...

... DUBLIN 'GINGERBREAD LADY' THE TROUBLE with the pro duction of The Gingerbread Lady, characteristic Neil Simon potency, at the Dublin Eblana, is essentially the direction of Anna Manahan in the lead part of the blowsey, full-blown alco holic singer. Returned from a dry-out to a shabby, brown- stone apartment inhabited by a homosexual friend (Philip O'Brien) Miss Manahan's inter pretation is ...

... 'BULLSHOT CRUMMOND' AT HAMPSTEAD R.B. MARRIOTT REVIEWS Opened August 7 THE LOW Moan Spectacular are at Hampstead Theatre Club with their take-off of Sapper's Bulldog Drummond, Bullshot Crummond. Sapper entertained hundreds of thousands of readers between the two world wars with his Drummond yarns and they also drew big theatre and cinema audiences. Like many of his popular contempor aries ...

... Farnham 'Moving House' THEIDEA, unlike all the bric-a-brac, never quite got off the ground in Moving House by Fay Weldon, which had its world premiere at the Redgrave, Farnham, last week. Miss Weldon is well-known both as a radio and television writer, and this,' her first attempt at a full-length stage play, ssmacks of camera shots: without a camera and close-ups that the audience cannot ...

... Shaftesbury 'Liza of Lambeth' SOMERSET MAUGHAM'S first novel, a sad, sombre naturalistic story of life in the East End of London in the nineties, has been turned into a rollicking musical. Liza of Lambeth, at the Shaftesbury. The show is far away from Maugham, in focus, atmosphere and cnaracter, out even on its own terms is not a success. Rollicking, and a touch of the pearlies, is not ...

... Indian Festival THE THIRD Festival of Arts of India opened at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this week. It will also be seen in Manchester, Bristol. Bath. Cheltenham and Corby and at the Queen Eliza beth Hall again on July 14 and 15. The Festival features song, music, dance and drums from the North and South of India and features sixteen artists in solos and ensembles. They are Sitltleshwan Devi, ...

... Dolores Gray as Rose DOLORES GRAY, returning to the West End theatre for the first time since her success in Annie Get Your Gun. had a very warm reception when she opened at the Piccadilly as Rose, the ogress but pitiable mother in Gypsy, having taken the part from the great Angela Lansbury. It was a pity that enthusiasm could not con tinue to the end of the show, except in the sense of ...

... Manchester lunchtime MANCHESTER'S first lunch-time pub drama production has taken place in the wine bar of the Nag's Head, Jackson's Row. It was put on by the Manchester Drama Group, which has linked together a number of players in the city, and hopes, probably under a revised title, to stage regular productions, both at mid-day and in the early evening, in this and other pubs. The group have ...

... SWARTHMORE, LEEDS DAVID ROBERTSON is battling on at the Swarthmore Centre Studio in Woodhouse Square, Leeds, and has put on a very lively and delightful Christmas pantomime, Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves, It is a real traditional pantomime with a camel, a dame a clown (who really was a clown in his youth, touring with Bertram Mills) and a principal boy. The cast are mainly students at the ...

... 'THE END OF ME OLD CIGAR' R.B. MARRIOTT REVIEWS Opened January 16 JOHN OSBORNE'S new play, The End of Me Old Cigar, at Greenwich Theatre, has at its centre, and radiating influences, instructions, demands and commands, Lady Regine Frimley, who comes from the darker parts of London, but has risen in the world, to become the wealthy owner of a very high class brothel in one of the best of ...