... Farnham 'Moving House' THEIDEA, unlike all the bric-a-brac, never quite got off the ground in Moving House by Fay Weldon, which had its world premiere at the Redgrave, Farnham, last week. Miss Weldon is well-known both as a radio and television writer, and this,' her first attempt at a full-length stage play, ssmacks of camera shots: without a camera and close-ups that the audience cannot ...

... Shaftesbury 'Liza of Lambeth' SOMERSET MAUGHAM'S first novel, a sad, sombre naturalistic story of life in the East End of London in the nineties, has been turned into a rollicking musical. Liza of Lambeth, at the Shaftesbury. The show is far away from Maugham, in focus, atmosphere and cnaracter, out even on its own terms is not a success. Rollicking, and a touch of the pearlies, is not ...

... Regent's Park 'Othello' UNTIL last year the Open Air Theatre stage was so wide that exits had to be taken at the double. Now the acting space is smaller for 'Othello, the director, Mervyn Willis, and designer, Mark Negin, have reached upwards, placing an unlovely three-storeyed structure at centre back, and providing steps to platforms from which scenes may be watched or overheard. This ...

... 'THE FAMILY DANCE' AT THE CRITERION FELICITY BROWNE'S The Family Dance, at the Criterion, is a kind of Berkshire upper- class dance of death. While an, unseen children's party is going on in the Musgrave country house--quite a large place--the adultsso called, congregate in the wide and lofty kitchen to parade their sorrows and their angers, their regrets and their frustrations. Presiding ...

... Guildford 'Banana Ridge' BEN TRAVERS was at the Guildford Yvonne Arnaud for the first night of his Banana Ridge, revived 38 years after its original presentation. This typical Travers farce also serves as a vehicle for the indefatigable Robert Morley. Although the author is enjoying a vogue amounting almost to a cult, his work in general and tnis piece in particular remain neither more ...

... Bolton 'One Enchanted Evening' THERE was a television drama event a year or two ago about a smart dinner party where the guests, got up to kill, were eating and drinking elegantly and making conversation on a phoney sophisticated level about books, plays, concerts, friends, while a television set in the corner spurted out pictures of violence in Vietnam. The intrusion, though apparantly ...

... COVENT GARDEN COMMUNITY AT THE Jackson's Lane Communily Centre in Highgate was a wealth of puppetry and the Covent Garden Community Theatre Company. This group performs at certain times of the year in pubs in its area, but this spring has agreed to visit other parts of London, although the show remains one with a strong local flavour. The Wizard of Odds has been written by Richard Robinson ...

... MAGNUM THEATRE GROUP JUST AROUND the corner from Cable Street in the heart of the East End, the Italianate church of St George in the East towers over the surrounding blocks of council flats and shabby Regency houses. The crypt was converted some ten years ago into a spacious community and arts centre, with a profitable daytime use as rehearsal space for a major orchestra and atv least ...

... BUBBLE BUBBLE is off to a cheery start with their two-hour gallop through the tangled history of British entertainment for the masses-- medieval miracle plays, Shakespeare. Punch and Judy, pantomime in all its guises and melodrama, though not necessarily in that order. All contained in ine Last ineatre Show, devised and directed by Glen Walford, which opened as part of the Islington ...

... 'DINGO' CHARLES WOOD'S Dingo, which recently joined Brecht's Schweyk in the Second World War in the repertoire at the RSC's small Stratford theatre. The Other Place, though it also deals with the grotesqueness of war, lacks the perspective of the earlier play. Mr Wood is obsessed with horrors, and he presents some horrific images: the contorted charred body of a tank-trooper mourned by his ...

... 'RUMPELSTILTSKIN' BARRIE STACEY has revived the Easter pantomime tradition with great success, and the books he writes are marked by absolute cleanliness and strict suitability throughout for children. His new tour of the lesser-known theme Rumpelstiltskin keeps the same high standards. Impeccably dressed, ingenious adaptable decor, strong storyline, and appropriate melodies that carry ...

... LAM DA DOUBLE BILL POOR OLD Erik Petterson in Kenneth Jupp's (appropriately?) meandering play, The Explorer, doesn't have much luck. First he discovers egocentric explorer Harry Hamilton's body, punctured with arrows, in a Brazilian forest. Then, just off the plane, in England (and still suffering from jet lag), he finds himself acting as catalyst in Robin and Lena Hamilton's adjustment ...