... Queen Christina THE OTHER PLACE ITS TO be hoped that Pam Gems' new play, Queen Christina, won't end up with a Women's Lib tag pasted to it. Although it is written by a woman, about a woman, its theme is more complex than that. Director Penny Cherns wisely adds no overt feminist messages though she does? allow her designer, Di Seymour to emphasise this aspect rather heavily. This is a pity ...

... Troilus and Cressida ALDWYCH NOT EVERY Shakespeare play benefits from being given a spurious relevance to the present day. but 'Troilus and Cressida stands up well to Barry Kyle's treatment. Its bleakness and cynicism has always removed it from the noble tragedies? and the mighty chronicles of power overthrown, for the war we see between the Greeks and Trojans is every bit as pointless and ...

... Semi-Monde GLASGOW THE unearthing of Semi-Monde, Noel Coward's juvenile satire on the bright young jet-set of the twenties, is a feather in the cap of Glasgow Citizens' and an inestimable service to the old master. Mentioned in Cole Lesley's biography (where its first title of Ritz Bar is also given), it? has been designed and staged by Philip Prowse and lit by Gerry Jenkinson with a ...

... The Belle of Amherst PHOENIX Opened September 14 ALL THE pent-up emotion in Emily Dickinson's nature poured itself into passionate verse, leaving the woman herself something of a mystery. William Luce's one-woman play at the Phoenix, The Belle of Amherst, remedies this omission by creating a rounded portrayal of her in her daily? life, a shy woman brought up in a stern atmosphere of ...

... The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold MANCHESTER HOW FAR is it possible to translate into a theatrical presentation the hallucinations and imaginings of an overwrought mind? The question is inevitably raised by Ronald Harwood's new play, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold with which Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre is openings its new season. Based on Evelyn Waugh's auto biographical novel of the ...

... Phychosis Unclassified PSYCHOSIS: Unclassified at the Bush Theatre is very far from being a Son of illuminatus, although both shows stem from the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool and Ken Campbell. It has been adapted from a story by Theodore Sturgeon. Some of Your Blood and Is quite chilling in its slow unravelling of the history of an Army private under psychiatric investigation ...

... Kurt Weill NEITHER Brecht nor Weill are likely to slip from their favoured place in modern theatrical repertoires, especially in Britain and Germany. But if not a hot ticket commercially, because audiences are actively discouraged from involvement in the performances, the profession rished them for a remarkable blend of theatrically and social conscience. Half Moon's new threepenny peepshow ...

... Academy of the Arts THE HOW and the why of a performer's art are aspects which intrigue those people who are quite content to remain audience members for their entire lives just as much as they do fellow actors, dancers, musicians and singers. Barbara Perry, in her one-woman snow wmcn nas recently had two showcase performances at the King's Head Theatre Club, explores with affection as well ...

... Theatre of Puppets THE FAUSTUS legend tends to stick in British theatre minds as something shared fairly evenly between Marlowe's play and Gounod's opera. Yet under the folktales and the supernatural fantasies is a memory of a real person and it may be this tinge of reality which has ensured the survival ot the story. Marlowe having written his version in collaboration, throwing in for good ...

... Buster SKIMMING the surface of Buster Keaton's long life and works, Jane McCulloch and Donald Fraser's Buster, a musical tribute to a great artist of the silent screen at the Old Vic raises scores of questions it doesn't allow itself time to answer. Houdini called him Buster, we're told --'but not why, nor how they met; Buster broke his leg making this film, runs the script but ...

... Julius Caesar MODERN-DRESS Shakespeare is something of a National Youth Theatre speciality and Michael Croft has so produced Julius Caesar several times before. In the latest NYT revival at the Shaw Theatre, we have modern dress with a vengeance--this is the world of guerilla fighting and punk rock hooliganism with nobility of purpose fading a good way into the shadows behind political ...

... Catchpenny Twist IN THE opening scenes of Catchpenny Twist, Desmond Cave and Raymond Hardie are two ex-schoolmasters earning a precarious living writing death ballads to order for slain IRA men. Stewart Parker's play loosely traces their career from Belfast to Dublin to London, as they flee a death threat of their own and try to make it in the pop music business. Despite their protests ...