... superior mime, as in this production. All the central characters use sign language. Some of them speak while they are doing so; others have voices to speak for them. The voices are ac tors, clothed head to foot in discreet puppeteers' black, who follow ...

... which we see and hear saxophonist-composer Dave Earnshaw. Claire Lewis sparks some life into Carrie, the model, and Mark Heath speaks his part as Brook fruitily enough, but landlady (Susi Blackburn), prostitute (Angela Wyndham Lewis), photographer (Jamie ...

... David, seems to picture himself as her not overly-benevolent employer, while she slaves away in the kitchen, but because he speaks an irritatingly high-flown kind of empty English (No matter and Toast will suffice, and the like and this before breakfast ...

... role. She is elegant and daintily pretty, and loyal in bringing the choreography to life. But she is not Isadora. As her speaking double, Mary Miller, with dishevelled earthy dignity and with eyes that mirror womanly pas sions, gets much closer. From ...

... from all regular convention, and the settings by Ralph Koltai are practically devoid of decoration. The pace is quick, the speaking clear, poetry is implicit rather than marked upon. The drama, here very pitiable rather than painfully tragic, sturdily stems ...

... National Coun cil for Civic Theatre. A comedy for middle-scale production was ordered, and delivered, gift-wrapped, so to speak, at a gala evening. With a cast of seven, and easily tourable sets, it has obvious potential in its designated market. There ...

... is compounded of elaborate movement, judicious costuming, a sound accompaniment which is largely verbal and an intelligent speaking of dialogue, be it formal or demotic. Milton was no great shakes as a dramatist direct, but the blind Puritan polemicist ...

... and nimble footwork into a role that is never quite securely balanced between credibility and comfort. The best singing and speaking came from the practised old hand Kenneth Sandford, with his full-blooded melodramatic exaggerations as the wicked Sir Despard ...

... to match the flavour of Northangcr Abbey rather than Wodchouse ones, and the cast sounded anything but Cowardesque when speaking Charles Lewis' translated dialogue. Le Testament de la Tante Caroline is 1933 Roussel and less of a rarity here. Jeremy ...

... harlots. Polly and Lucy are practically drained of romantic amorousness. Thus we get the colloquial, quick mutter of TV-type speaking, not always bringing out the comedy of the lines, and some fortissimo, even furious, delivery of songs. We get cigarettes ...

... Anthony Merryn (Photo by Alexander Michel). MARIUS GORING, a stalwart of the Old Vic in its early days, returned to pay a speaking role in the production of Zaide. the Mozart opera. He is seen rehearsing, with producer GRAHAM VICK. ...

... was not taken. Perhaps, though, the catalyst should have been Carmen herself. While Jean Bailey's Carmen was, technically speak ing, excellently sung, there was little vivacity or allure, Bonaventura Bot- tone's Jose emerging as the more in triguing ...