... The Wonderful Palace of Nod CHAT'S PALACE THE FASHION to create a new Christmas show within the traditional panto framework but using a polygamy of stories rather than just one takes a new turn with The Wonderful Palace of Nod. Free Form, based on the East London community arts centre of Chat's raiaceiwnicn was xormeriy a puDiic library), is an artistic combine which includes experts in ...

... DOWRY WITH TWO WHITE DOVES DEMOLITION and disbandment threats not withstanding, Theatro Technis have embarked on an ambitious repertoire programme which includes favourite productions from recent seasons as well as new plays. Dowry With Two White Doves was originally written by Nick McCarty as a radio play; it is a social tragedy stemming from the Turkish take-over of northern Cyprus al ...

... Period of Adjustment KING'S HEAD Opened April 27 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS is not everyone's idea of a load of laughs, but his plays are not without humour and at least one, Period of Adjustment. has moments of high' comedy, though. Williams being Williams, at root it is a psycho-sexual drama. This play, last seen in London at the beginning of the six ties. is well worth the revival Robert ...

... Playin' Porter CORK NOEL PEARSON'S latest presentation Playin' Porter is a musical entertainment based on the life and music of Cole Porter. Devised by Fergus Linehan and Jim Doherty. it links the story of the rich boy who made good with more than forty of the songs that Cole Porter wrote, all the way from a Yale college ditty to Kiss Me Kate. Tonv Kenny, Rosaleen Linehan. Emma Angeline ...

... Twelfth Night OLD VIC Opened April 24 AS YOU TAKE your seat at the Old Vic for Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. the back wall of the bare stage, painted green and embellished with titles of Prospect productions, is the only bit of decoration to be seen through the pros arch. And then just before the performance is due to start, actors wander on to the stage waving to friends in the audience, ...

... A Cool Million OPEN SPACE YOU can't generalise safely about anything in the theatre and especially you can't generalise about second thoughts being--or not being--best. In particular when I have a shrewd feeling that Robert Walker's A Cool Million (by courtesy of Nathanael West's original and Andy Smith's catchily vamping score) is a third thought at the very least. The author's revised ...

... DEAD GENERATIONS MAYDAY'S researches into some of south-west London's less savoury political and financial past are obviously pretty thorough--its latest touring show for older schoolchildren, youth clubs and adult audiences in its preferred non- theatre venues comes apparently in several editions and is historical both in subject and in presentation. Dead Generations is about Batter- ...

... THE GREAT JAM TART ROBBERY WHAT seems likely to be one of John A. Cooper's last children's plays as artistic director of the Woolwich Tramshed shows just what can be done on a minute production budget, a bare fortnight to write and stage the whole thing and only three players, plus a pianist. The Great Jam Tart Robbery is for kids between 3 and 7 and is a neat blending of several nursery ...

... MY BROTHER FEOERICO SURREALISM is back in theatrical fashion if indeed it ever left it. As part of the London Poetry Secre- tatiat's regular Pentameters seasons, two plays of this genre came together over Easter a reworked version of Sinclair Beiles' My Brother Federico (not Frederico as the programme has it) and Heath- cote Williams' The Immortalist. Both appropriately enough lor the ...

... The Sleeping Beauty ROYAL BALLET I DOUBT whether there's any dancer in the Royal Ballet with a more assured balance than Jennifer Penney, who seems to be able to go up on point in arabesque or attitude and stay there motionless until she chooses to come down. It's a valuable asset, of course, but watching her Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden on March 10. I was conscious of ...

... The Futurist Marvellous MOVING BEING MOVING BEING chose to enter its second decade as a professional fringe company with a colourful, f surreal entertainment entitled The Futurist Marvellous, presented at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, their base since it opened seven years ago. It is in a sense a beginning and an end. for after 10 years director Geoff Moore and designer Peter Mumford, ...

... An Inspector Calls SHAW Opened January 16 BUILT LIKE a well-engineered detective story, the plot of J B Priestley's An Inspector Calls holds together this somewhat mystical moral tale and makes it all seem credible. Memories of the Old Vic production of 30 years ago, with its starry cast headed by Ralph Richardson, make the present com pany at the Shaw a trifle underpow ered, though James ...