... OUTRAGEOUS absurdity, the ridiculous become the normal, is as difficult to present on the stage as high comedy, and like high comedy, must succeed entirely if it is to satisfy at all. Ronald Eyre has gone in for outrageous absurdity in Something's Burning, at the Mermaid. The setting is a country police station in a country which is beset by spies and counter spies, police as spies and ...

... ANGST FOR THE MEMORY THE University of Essex at Colchester seems to have considerable theatrical verve not to say initiative. It boasts a student drama society called the Misfit Theatre and brought a play by one of its postgraduate students to London and the Lamb and Flag for a lunchtime son recently. The play is a slightly surreal one. post-shadowing lonesco in its conception, but quite ...

... A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MANCHESTER THE trouble with planning a production like A Day in the Life of Manchester which is being produced by Contact in Manchester University Theatre, is that once it has been scheduled it is virtually impossible to backtrack, even if the material unearthed by intensive research turns out to be rather thin. Contact's researchers were out in force in the city on ...

... LILIAN HARMEL DANCE GROUP THE recent Music and Arts Week in Camden included three performances by the Lilian Harmel Dance Theatre Group at the Hampstead Theatre. Theatre comes into this studio's title advisedly, for even the youngest performers showed a nice sense of presentation, taking a macnine misnap in tneir striae. Wisely, and partly no doubt dictated by budgetary considerations, cos ...

... Runaways NEW YORK THE front pages tell the terrifying figures of between 750,000 to 1 mil lion teenagers who leave home each year in the United States. Elizabeth Swados' shattering ensemble musical Runaways gives the frightening details, the logical rea sons for anger, the sp^pific lives maimed. Begun almost a year ago as another in-house project of Joe Papp's N Y. Shakespeare Festival ...

... WEDDING FEVER THE HOMESPUN tale of a city family, Wedding Fever by Sam Cree is a wholesome, simple comedy. It uses standard domestic situations to provide easily recognisable amusement. At the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, it has been revived with the same leading actor. Jimmy Logan, after an interval of 12 years and it is just as funny. Despite the World Cup. this story of a rabid football ...

... THE SHORTSIGHTED BEAR THE group of four actors, obviously deeply committed to working together in close ensemble, who brought Faustus' Last Supper to Upstream from Coventry's Belgrade Studio recently have moved across the river to the Soho Poly for an exercise in modern matrimonial drama which is as much an allegory in its own way as the Marlowe variation. Four-handers about two couples ...

... 'FRINGE BENEFITS' AT THE WHITEHALL R. B. Marriott reviews Opened August 26 BRIAN RIX is back at the Whitehall, the theatre he made famous for farce, after an absence of ten years. No longer the boyish Mr Rix. he is the older Mr Rix, his technique even stronger, his personality more relaxed, his sense of the lous at its best. He is one of two errant husbands in Fringe Benefits by Peter ...

... Mayday 'Rock Candy' MAYDAY THEATRE have two rock musicals currently in their reper toire, thus making full use of a band. For children there is Rock Candy which lasts just over an hour and is a salutory lesson to those youngsters prepared to take note that all is not sweetness and light in the apparent ly glittering and glamorous world of popular music. The story tells how a group begins in ...

... Lambeth 'Strong-Arm Sammy' CHILDREN and the long summer holidays are not necessarily the smoothest of companions. A joint project between Lambeth Borough Council and the Young Vic have not only provided a catalyst to sparkle the mix, they have also created something well worth the effort and what money has been spent. Using a cast ot 30 between the ages of 12 and 16 from a round dozen of ...

... Last takes over from Jenner DESMOND KELLY has a presence which exudes nobility and his dancing of prince roles is, in this respect, unmatched by anyone in the Royal Ballet. At Covent harden on July 12 he danced nis first Prince Florimund in The Sleeping Beaty. giving the role his customary unhurried elegance, positive reactions, clear mime and in valuable assistance in lifts. It was hard ...

... Little 'Marble' I'M NOT AT ALL sure what the young sculptor Chris Coles is trying to say in his Marble (Little. December 9), something about the artist's place in society, perhaps. But his play makes nothing clear, except to suggest that people remember a masterpiece for itself, rather than the event it commemorates Even that is not strictly true, but for the purpose of his argument he shows ...