... Animate Theatre BATTERSEA ANIMATE Theatre is a newcomer to our mime scene, its members, William Dashwood and Anja Pronk, having based themselves previously in Hoi-land. Their British debut at Battersea Arts Centre showed a propensity for goldfish bowl situations, requiring us to watch the whys and wherefores of sparked-off emotions with enforced attention to simple detail. They played not ...

... Top men to run Riverside Studios LONDON'S Riverside Studios arts complex has picked the top two members of the four-strong team which will run the revamped operation. Charlie Hanson, who has run the building as caretaker administrator since the sacking of previous artistic director David Gothard. has been appointed programme director, con- trolling the shows. Former television executive David ...

... Kent attacks Arts Council's 'Glory Garbage' Regional plan is 'ludicrous' JEREMY JEHU reports STRUGGLING to cut down a £70,000 deficit, Kent Opera has joined the harsh critics of the Arts Council's Glory of the Garden regional development strategy. Describing the plan to shift money out of London and into the provinces as Glorious Garbage, the company's director Norman Platt has dismissed it ...

... Aren't We All ON BROADWAY CLIFFORD Williams' star-studded production of Lonsdale's Aren't We All? looks like repeating its Hay mar ket Theatre success at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert are again mainly responsible for the success, but the other stars are Lynn Redgrave, Jeremy Brett and George Rose. All of them are excellent. Miss Redgrave, now ...

... Blood Relations DERBY THIS ODD-angled look at the notorious Lizzie Borden case in 1890s New England has met with continued success over the last few years in the native Canada of its pioneering author, Sharon Pollock. Now it seems that its near-melodramatic presentation can have appeal in this country. t--ertainly its buropean premiere pro duction by Angie Langfield at Derby Playhouse is full ...

... Measure for Measure YOUNG VIC DAVID THACKER'S production of Measure for Measure at the Young Vic is in today's dress, formal suits or jeans, and a nice frock for Mariana, Isabella of course in her nun's habit. The vocal approach is in something of a similar manner, on the chatty side, casual between passages of quick urgency. The method works well enough, though for me there is (or was on ...

... Neverneverland KING'S COLLEGE IT WOULD BE idle to pretend that the American Festival got off to anything approaching a good dramatic start with Neverneverland, a play which seems to magnify everything that is worst in American theatre. Or even everything that is worst about Americans, who appear to take a delight in talking about their feelings, fears and phobias, then analysing them and, ...

... A challenge for actress EDINBURGH The Human Voice THE HUMAN Voice (La Voix Humaine) was written by Jean Cocteau in 1930 for the Comedie Francaise and has subsequently been performed by many famous actresses, most notably by Ingrid Bergman. This monologue on the telephone which depicts a woman at the end of her tether, vainly trying to hang on to the man who has deserted her, presents a great ...

... Gyubal Wahazar ESSEX UNIVERSITY THEATRE THE LATE Polish writer Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz luckily called Witkacy for short is gaining recogni tion here through the work of Stuart Daly's Witkacy Ensemble, who staged the British premiere of Gyubal Waha zar as part of the Essex Festival. Written before the rise of Hitler, this highly physical and bizarre epic nonethe less forecasts the ...

... Dream Slayer CROYDON AT FIRST, Intercity Theatre Company's production of Bryan Oliver's play seems like a straightforward thriller, as Andrew Chambers reports receiving anonymous phone calls, threatening death But this turns out to be play acting: Andrew is in a place called Fantasy World, and Robert is employed to entertain him. The audience is often misled in the same wav, but neverthe ...

... BLOOMSBURY A Bite of the Big Apple THERE IS no doubt about it, British audiences are different from American ones, which is by way of saying that I could find little that lived up to the promised celebration of the American festival, A Bite of the Big Apple, at the Bloomsbury Theatre. The dance content on the opening night fell into that wide, grey area of so many performances that are not ...

... French without tears ANTHONY MERRYN on Covent Garden's missing passion. ROYAL OPERA La Boheme THE MOST was not quite made of La Boheme's many opportunities in Covent Garden's revival of John Copley's admirably detailed 1974 production. Silvio Varviso's conducting again generally imparted a musical liveliness, with a careful ear for the orchestral felicities and subtleties, and a new cast of ...