... The Magic Man MAY FAIR Opened December 13 A LONG-RUNNING success in the States, Barbara and Anthony D'A-mato's strange little musical The Magic Man proves, well not exactly disappointing, but rather different from what we expected. The songs, and there are only about half a dozen of them, have a slickness and? nuity; the book, however, is a reach- me-down affair which smacks vaguely of old ...

... The Kingfisher Quest BIRMINGHAM BRUM STUDIO'S Christmas season opened last week with The Kingfisher Quest. described as an 'Oriental tale of intrigue and daring' for seven to eleven year olds. It deals with the perils and pitfalls which beset those in search of the world's most beautiful emerald, where? ure means death. It is the combined effort of Roger Lancaster and Chris topher Honer who ...

... THE SECOND MONDAY A. S. ROBERTSON'S third play for One Man Theatre Company, The Second Monday, is an effective monologue for a man of indetermin ate age in that decaying state which is not quite tramp nor yet quite acceptable humanity. Close on one hour's running time is perhaps a little over-long for a flash-back as the man is shifted out of his dilapidated room through a succ ession of ...

... 'PINCH ME NOT AT GREENWICH Douglas Blake reviews Ooened December 14 RICHARD O'KEEFE is a name new to theatre but his first stage play. Pinch Me Not at Greenwich, proves him to be an accomplished writer. His previous experience has been with TV and radio, valuable in that this has given him the skill to create believable characters. The five people in this play are completely realistic; ...

... The Alchemist ALPWYCH Opened December 14 THE ROYAL Shakespeare Company brings what has been a very good year to a close with a dashing production by Trevor Nunn of the greatest of Jacobean comedies, marvellously inventive, with comedy situations of which any modern scriptwriter would be proud, and full? of the hugger-mugger of early 17th century London life. Across the Aldwych stage passes a ...

... SIR GAWAIN AND THE QUEEN KNIGHT THE delights of the National Theatre's first full-scale home-grown show for children are so numerous that it is difficult to know where to start apportioning the credit--to deviser-director Michael Bogdanov for having decided on an adaptation of the story Sir Gawain and the? Green Knight and then interpreting it so brilliantly in Peter Stevens' flavoursome ...

... FRANZ INTO APRIL PAM GEMS, author of Franz into April at the ICA at lunchtimes, has dedicated this short play to the memory of Fritz Perls, the outrageous pioneer of Gestalt Ther apy and a believer in doing your own thing. The play takes time to get going, but once the plain English girl April, an employee at the Clinic, has fallen under the influence of Franz's per suasive chat it comes ...

... OUR OWN PEOPLE SOMEONE in the National Front really ought to be paying a royalty to all those Marxist playwrights currently giving it publicity in fringe and committed theatre--the latest seems to be David Edgar's play for Pirate Jenny--Our Own People. Given that a court-room drama? never fails, largely because most of its audience has never set foot in one and the apparently authentic ...

... THE MASTER'S VOICE FOR HIS one-man show The Master's Voice, Des Keogh uses the songs, poetry and memoirs of Noel Coward. The material is arranged in a roughly chronoligical order, with two sub-divisions of English Eccentrics and the war years. Despite the frequent excerpts from his personal reminiscences, it's a re-creation of Coward's world rather than of Coward himself. At no point does ...

... Like Dolls or Angels KING'S HEAD THEATRICAL time-lags are really too much of a good--or a bad--thing. Money worries threaten the National Student Drama Festival precisely at the moment when one of its greatest successes deservedly receives a fine professional production. If you don't look after today? there is precious little chance ot tomorrow being there to look after itself. In the meantime ...

... A PINPRICK OF HISTORY POLITICALLY- COMMITTED theatre can be enormously effective, particularly when it puts Theatre first, thus ensuring that what is said makes its point in terms of drama. But the loose, charade-type of partly-improvisatory mish- mash called A Pinprick of History at the? Almost Free failed to take note of this important fact. The result is ineffective politically and ...

... PIP SIMMONS Woyzeck ...