... Council pays up after strike threat A STRIKE hv backstage crew at the Kings Theatre, Edinburgh, which would have forced the can cellation of the Hogmanay per formance of the theatre's panto mime Jack and the Beanstalk, was narrowly averted last week when the district council blamed a com puter error for a shortfall in the technicians' overtime payments. But BETA shop steward at the Kings. ...

... BROADWAY Into The Woods INTO THE WOODS, the new Stephen Sondheim musical at Broadway's large Martin Beck Theatre, is as controversial as Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George. Less horrific than the first and less selfconsciously highbrow than the second, its ingenious mixture of a number of tairy stories maKes it a on more accessi ble and enjoyable for average theatre goers. Its ...

... SCARBOROUGH The Woman In Black A SKILFUL adaptation of the highly successsful thriller by Susan Hill, The Woman in Black, is a masterpiece and its world premiere at the Stephen Joseph Theatre must certainly be fol lowed by a presentation in the West End. Brilliantly adapted by Stephen Mal- latratt, who uses a clever series of theatrical devices to bring this haunting work to the stage, the ...

... COLISEUM Hansel and Gretel THE TIME is past for presenting Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel And Gretel with the sentimental fairytale value he put on it himself. David Poutney, in his new production for English National Opera, stops short of making it a study of child abuse but lets in a good measure of Freud in treating the relationships between parents and children quite seriously. The ...

... MANCHESTER A Simple Man NORTHERN Ballet Theatre has been given a new lease of life with the addition to its repertoire of the dance' drama A Simple Man, choreographed for them by Gillian Lynne. Based on the life and works of the famous northern artist L. S. Lowry, perhaps best known for his pictures of matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs, the work was conceived originally for BBC ...

... Carrie BROADWAY BY THE time Carrie opened at Broad way's Virginia Theatre, it was only two hours long. Apart from this new-found brevity, and a powerful, restrained performance by Betty Buckley as Car rie's fanatical mother, it was hard to find any redeeming features in the production. It duly closed after just six official performances, and some previews. Whatever possessed the RSC and Fried- ...

... The Fifteen Streets PLAYHOUSE FIRST THE Shaughraun, now The Fifteen Streets, it looks as though popular theatre is in this year, the type of theatre that was once mass entertainment. And there is nothing wrong with that. nor with the kind of massively selling novels written by Catherine Cookson. They are loved because although they are about a time and a location unknown to many of her ...

... The Midsummer Gathering HARROGATE FOR THE LAST in us current season the Harrogate Theatre present The Midsummer Gathering, a new play which they have specially commissioned from Denise Deegan, author of the very successful Daisy Pulls It Off. It is in the torm ot an entertainment of Yorkshire Dales legends and songs, set in the year 1945 when the war is nearly over. The play is set in a large ...

... Jan Decorte ICA IN THE ICA's press release Jan Decorte is hailed as Flanders' most controversial theatre director. Controversial, my eye, there can be no dispute, In Ondertussendoor (In Between the Meantime) is a confidence trick that gives three players U long minutes to get nowhere. It is as weak as charades, with none of the charm. Decorte thinks he is above every other kind of theatre ...

... Cruel Garden LFB THERE ARE two scenes in Cruel Garden at Sadler's Wells which drive the audience into a state of frenzy: when the matador fights the bull and, later, when the matador fights on alone. In both, speed, shape and desire for power order the dance. The matador is Lorca, poet of the oppressed. The bull is authoritorian- ism and with his victory, following the goring of the poet ...

... PAIGNTON TORBAY Entertainments Manager, Vanessa Hart, believes in catering for out of season and well as summer season customers. Michael Rose's touring ver sion of seemed a good choice. The sunny, well tested show would seem perfect for spring, but somehow it seemed a bit lost in the vast Festival Theatre at Paignton. There is nothing wrong with Michael Rose's production, which has an ...

... RIVERSIDE Chairperson THAT late 20th century taboo, the mental or physical handicap, has attracted a decent amount ol serious playwriting over the past years, from Joe Egg and The Elephant Man to experimental work by David Cregan. Geoff Bullen's Chairperson has had considerable success in the regions but this production by Jay Vaughan is a London 'first'. It scores on another count. Mark ...