... Durrenmatt Strindberg THERE'S A PROVERB about rolling stones gathering no moss, and a poem with a phrase about a green thought in a green shade. Bernard Culshaw's designs for the Tyneside Theatre Company's production of Friedrich Dilrrenmatt's Play Strindberg at the Hampstead Theatre Club on July 3 were as sylvan as the play is urbane. It is a gloss on The Dance of Death, but Ga- reth ...

... 'Absurd Person Singular' fun and chill by R. B. Marriott ALAN AYCKBOURN'S latest comedy. Absurd Person Singular, at the Criterion, is very well designed for popular laughter, technically and verbally, yet has a chilling element which produces a feeling of sadness. His characters, or caricatures are three married couples who spend three successive Christ mas Eves together, party fashion. ...

... 'Water Babies' is ideal for the children's hols CHRISTMAS used to be the only time for children's shows in the West End, but last Easter saw a few and now, to coincide with the summer holidays, comes a spankingly good production of The Water Babies at the Royalty, where it opened on July 24 for a six- week season of twice-daily matinees. Charles Kingsley's famous story about the little ...

... 'Dandy Dick' fun is furious THIS YEAR'S production of Pi- nero's Dandy Dick at the Chichester Festival Theatre may be out of the same stable asv 1969's successful The Magistrate but the bloodlines are different. The fun is furious, but not always fast, and there is an overall elegance about the proceedings that leads the audience to stop to think, when they should be catching breath ...

... Prospect Company 'Pericles' THE CALAMATIOUS adventures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are not as well known as some of Shakespeare's more popular heroes. This, it is claimed, is partly because of the play's brothel scenes. Yet it is this very aspect which the Prospect Theatre Company have seized upon for their production of Pericles at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh. Eastern cushions are stre./n ...

... Ptnlip Voss as Mr Purdie and Helen Cotterill as Mrs Purdie in Edgar Wreforcfs current production of Barrie s Dear Brutus at the Oxford Playhouse. ...

... Lite Is A Dream BY THE MIDDLE of the 17th century, Spain had nearly completed her own isolation from the mainstream of Europe, both Catholic and Protestant, in matters social, political and artistic. Calderon de la Barca's play La Vida es suefio poitomises this ostrichism even in the new Roy Campbell translation which Another Theatre Company staged at the Mercury. Life Is a Dream comes ...

... Royal Court TWO APPOINTMENTS made by the Royal Court are of Ann Jellicoe, who becomes Literary Manager, and Michael Abben- setts, who has been named as Resident Dramatist. ...

... Beauties of Spartacus POSSIBLY ballet like opera is at its most enthralling when individual performers have established a personality before an audience. This could explain why the second and third acts of Khachaturian's Spartacus at the King's, Edinburgh, clear in their evidence of personal relationships and expressive of wonderful solo dancing and pas de deux, made such a stirring ...

... Institute of Choreology THE INSTITUTE of Choreology is a fast-growing organisation and at the annual demonstration and award of diplomas on July 6 the chairman of the Council, Nicholas Dromgoole, remarked on the increasing demand for choreologists and the consequent need for larger premises. These may soon be available in a South Coast town, though this will mean splitting the work of the ...

... 'Hamlet' at the Howff I DONT know whether to stand up to cheer, or to lie down and boo--The Howff's ten-week season under the auspices of M.S. Productions bowed itself out with Hamlet, directed by Joseph O'Conor and John Link. They shouldn't have done it. For the in tention applause; for the execu tion silence, or rather, a query. Why this play, in this way, here? We have become ...

... 'Hansel and Gretel' IN HANSEL AND Gretel, staged by the Harlow Ballet Club at The Playhouse, Harlow, on October 29. Janet and Leo Kersley provided an ideal leading role for their guest artist, Wayne Sleep. Admirable as he was, however, offering all the virtuoso brilliance one expects from mm plus a convincing characterisation, there were other points of interest about the production. The ...