... ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL THE WEEK of performances by the Royal Ballet School at Wimbledon (from July 8) was a test of their ability to recreate the same works night after night, and it was rewarding to see how some of this year's more promising students dealt with their problems. New to them was Cranko's duet Beauty and the Beast, with Lorna Murray's fresh young personality allied to a soft style ...

... 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 ...

... RADIO DOOM RADIO DOOM is neither science fiction nor the latest in local broad casting; it is a community theatre, though you would be forgiven for not having recognised the fact down on the South Bank at the Globe On Merseyside, it is now five years old in its self-appointed work of bridging the adult-youth gap and specialising in bringing to children and teenagers a chance to see and hear ...

... EDINBURGH TWO BY BRECHT TWO Brecht plays, produced by a visiting Romanian director, form the latest part of the repertoire of the Traverse Theatre Company, Edinburgh. The double bill consists of The Exception and the Rule and The Measures Taken, both of which are loosely concerned with in terpretation of a given set of circumstances. In the first, a European mer chant venturer drives a ...

... LUNCHTIME BELLS ARE RINGING RIGHT UP to the last minute of Tony Perrin's Hells Bells (Soho Poly, August 6) the material is there for an observantly written play based securely on character, but all is suddenly squandered when the author runs out of inspiration and has his cast stepping forward to sing For me and my Girl for whom, it will be remembered, the bells rang. Not so for Eddie ...

... THE GLOBE 'THE NORMAN CONQUESTS' Opened August 1 THE THREE plays by Alan Ayckbourn with the overall title The Norman Conquests, first reviewed at Greenwich Theatre, have come to the Globe under Michael Codron's management, again to triumph. Norman, Tom, Sarah, Annie, Reg and Ruth, in Table Manners, Living Together and Round and Round the Garden, are very amusing as they gather for a ...

... WINCHESTER MYSTERY CYCLE A SPLENDID spectacle in a splendid setting opened in the grounds of Wolvesev Palace, Winchester official home of the Bishop of Winchester, with the pre sentation of a Mediaeval Cycle of Mystery Plays, a modern ised version of the 15th century Lincoln Cycle the text of which 'was specially adapted by Martial Rose. Principal of King Alfred's Col lege, Winchester. An ...

... BRISTOL 'MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING' THE OXFORD and Cambridge Shakespeare Company, who have been touring annually in the United States since their inception in 1967, will this year be taking Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Elijah Moshinsky, on a six-week Atlantic excursion. The com pany, mixing a professional production team with under graduate actors and technicians, chose the Little, ...

... ROUND HOUSE 'HENRY THE FOURTH' BLEAK PROSPECT! One would have thought, with classical revivals of Shakespeare increasingly thin on the ground nowadays, that Kenny McBain's starkly ungimmicky productions of Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 currently in repertoire at the Round House somehow dwarf joined by Henry V, would seem refreshingly different. But the plays are so very subdued, muted from ...

... Personality of the week THE TRANSITION from light entertainment to the straight theatre, and particularly Shake speare. is never easy, but it has been accomplished with distinc tion by HELEN COTTERILL, who is playing Doll Tearsheet in Henry IV for Prospect Theatre Company at the Round House, followed by an extensive tour and a return to the Round House at the end of the 'year. Born in ...

... 'Hassan' tour THE FIRST professional tour by the National Theatre of the Deaf is of James Elroy Flecker's Hassan. adapted by Pat Key- sell and directed by Clifford Williams. The tour commences on October 9 and already has over fifty dates, among them Luton, Lambeth, Felixstowe, Colchester, Liverpool, War wick, Corby, Lincoln, Doncas- ter, York, Southport. Stirling, Aberdeen, Motherwell, ...