... '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 ...

... 'Molloy' a JOHN MOLLOY'S one-man show, Molloy, at Dublin Eblana, is a compendium of events in his life, both personal and theatrical. The personal includes a stint in the Navy, invalided back to Dublin, periods in tubercular hospitals. The theatrical takes in touring with the fit-ups, Shakespeare and films. Mr Molloy's artistry is in mellowing the sacred and profane of each, in articulating ...

... On the rocks IT'S A BIT of under the greenwood tree, who loves to lie with me at the Bush, where the double-bill from November 5 to 17 began with Christina Brown's Under the Bamboo Tree. This is a half-hour three-hander about a marriage which may, or may not. be on the rocks. The incumbent wife has invited the incipient one to dinner they take their roles very seriously, but all the man ...

... Bartok ballets THE ONLY REAL fault with the Hungarian State Opera and Ballet's first programme at the King's, Edinburgh, was the length of the interval between these two comparatively short works, Bluebeard's Castle by Bartok, and The Miraculous Mandarin, music also by Bartok, choreography Laszlo Seregi. It arrested the undoubted sense of satisfaction felt at the masterly presentation ...

... The Thrie Estates' is back at the Edinburgh Festival TO BORROW the language of the film world, Sir David Lindsays The Thrie Estaites is something of a golden oldie of the Edinburgh Festival. It is fondly remembered as the big discovery of the early years when Tyrone Guthrie took post-war audiences by storm with his exciting presentations in the Church of Scotland As sembly Hall, ...

... Rabelaisian TO SET the scene for the evening's entertainment, members of the audience arriving for Russell Hunter's readings from the works of Rabelais in one of Edinburgh's most famous masonic halls, are plied with wine, bread, cheese and iruu. The programme note speaks of Rabelais' appetite for joy in living and the translator of his works is quoted on his out spokenness. And, in case ...

... Austrian bill AN AUSTRIAN Federal Theatre Parliamentary bill has reached the final stages of drafting. Austria's Minister of Education and the Arts, Dr. Fred Sinowatz, states that the presept Bundestheatrerverband (Federal Theatres Association), claimed to be the largest thea trical trust in the world, is to undergo a thorough reor ganisation. It is planned to do away with the bureaucratic ...

... THOMAS HUXLEY THOMAS HUXLEY College in Ac ton has a flourishing department of English and Drama, though it is designed to turn out teachers who speailise in the theatre, rather than actors as such. One of the lecturers, Peter Chilver, has dramatised Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir, and this was performed by a cast of both students and staff in the new lecture theatre between December 13 and 15 ...

... HOWFF THE PHANTOM CAPTAIN is back at the Howff as a late-night show with a Wild West programme called Howdy, Stranger! This is another in-joke, and not a very good one at that. The overall situ-ation is a cowboy convention held in Lon don's suburbia and attended by delegates who have never come within miles of a horse, let alone a steer. So far, very good, but it is spoiled by going on for ...

... BUSH UP AT the Bush Theatre, something else stirs. This is a new revue called Phase 3 and a Bit, put together by four young men, who, on December 16, took an irreverent look at the economies of this country, and our attitudes thereto, and found the whole lot wanting. Fortunately, the audience was better served. This is an intelligent cabaret, even if there is too much of the same length among ...

... Georgia at the Garden WHAT A SURPRISE to hear Georgia Brown in the august surroundings of the Royal Opera House, and what a success she is in the The Seven Deadly Sins, the Brecht-Weill moral tale staged by the Royal Ballet (July 19). She sings Anna, the daughter of an ambi tious Louisiana family who send her out in the world to earn money so they can build their own house, and she ...

... DANCE THEATRE COMMUNE THE MAIN trouble with the Dance Theatre Commune, as far as can be judged from their week's season at The Howff on their way to the World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin, is that they woffle unbearably. Woffle choreographically, theatrically and artistically, for they display good intentions by the stepful, but never a finished product, and two hours is at ...