... HAMPSTEAD 'BODYWORK' BODYWORK by Jennifer Phillips, first seen at the Leicester Phoenix in 1972, has turned up at Hampstead Theatre Club. The production is worthwhile only for performances by Polly Adams and Joanna Dunham. Bodywork is a vapid play about two les bians: Milly, vulnerable and cringing, Sarah, domineering and sadistic. The play begins with them on holiday in the ...

... An Inspector Calls SHAW Opened January 16 BUILT LIKE a well-engineered detective story, the plot of J B Priestley's An Inspector Calls holds together this somewhat mystical moral tale and makes it all seem credible. Memories of the Old Vic production of 30 years ago, with its starry cast headed by Ralph Richardson, make the present com pany at the Shaw a trifle underpow ered, though James ...

... Cabaret MONTROUS REGIMENT MONSTROUS REGIMENT-- militant but nice with it, is a company of nine sisters plus two men thrown in for equality, committed to improving the status of women. In Floorshow, directed by David Bradford at Stratford East recently, it left no male dominated stone un turned, but projected anxious messages of grim protest with such humorous candour, and tongue in ...

... THE HOWFF 'THE LAST LUNCH BUT ONE' IT IS pleasant to be able to say that theatre is on its way back to The Howff, one of north London's better ideas as far as an evening of entertainment is concerned. Preced ed by Patsy Fuller, a young singer who performs her own material to the guitar, though as yet without the ability to project words as well as music, the play was John Lawrence's production ...

... SPELLBOUND ADULT illiteracy is a problem in this country recently and deservedly given publicity and incurring sympathy through a controlled period of emphasis in the media. To the best of my knowledge, however, only one of those theatre groups usually set together under the adjective miueo nas lacKiea me issue in dramatic form. This is Common Stock with Spellbound. Alan Passes' script is ...

... Lionel NEW LONDON IT WOULD BE nice to say that we are on the brink of the great British musical renaissance; there have been signs in this direction over the past few months in the area of showcase performances and, for that matter, over the past few years in both regional and experimental presentations. There is also a tradition of putting good tunes to a story for which they were not ...

... The Beggar's Opera BUBBLE THEATRE COMPANY BUBBLE Theatre's 1977 season opened with The Beggar's Opera, an appropriate choice for a company actively engaged in fund-raising! Ian Milne has made a new orchestration of the Pepusch score which keeps the early 18th century flavour within a subtly updated harmonisation: it works very well with small playing forces the players also leave their ...

... Stratford show A MEMORABLE variety evening at the Theatre Royal. Stratford East, held in honour of Abe Wolffe, ex- councillor. ex-Mayor of Newham and member of the theatre board, raised £937.50 to be donated towards the theatre's new central heating boiler Highlights of the cabaret show, directed by Philip Hedley before a packed house, included 82-year-old music hall artist Leslie Sarony who ...

... Still With Us The Big Bands IF BIG BANDS were really dead, as many people seem lo accept, there would not be so many tangible reminders of their existence. There would be none of those continual nostalgic harkbacks to the thirties and forties, in the theatre and on radio and TV. Record companies would not be re-releasing masters made by everyone from JACK PAYNE and the BBC RADIO DANCE BANO ...

... VOICE CHANGE AFTER 14 years there has been a change in the voices of Sounds Bob Rogers. Drummer and fourth voice Len Clarke was offered the drum job with Evita and decided that it was time he branched out having spent most of his pro career with the one band. Finding a replacement wasn't easy because sight reading vocal parts is an art in itself coupled with playing drums limited to choice ...

... UNIQUE Drummer PETER DA VIS, seen here with his guitarist Chris West (formerly with Stomu Yamash'ta), leads the unique jazz group Sister Sun, which draws its in spiration from Sun Ra and Tony Williams' Lifetime. Most of the band's success to date has been on the Con tinent and they have appeared at jazz festi vals in Paris and Bonn. Saxes and flute player Doni Stewart and bassist Mark Smith ...

... MELLY When he launched himself into the jazz world over 30 years ago, following a public school education at Stowe and National Service in the Royal Navy, which he has chronicled so hilariously in Rum. Bum and Concertina, now among the DaDerback best-sellers, GEORGE MELLY probably never dreamed that in the late seventies he would not only be one of the biggest box office attractions in this ...