... Threads at Hampstead R.B. MARRIOTT REVIEWS I KNOW more or less what Threads is about but not the why and wherefore of it. This comedy by John Byrne, at Hampstead Theatre, has come south from Scotland with Scots words, intonations, sayings and all. It is something like seeing a play in the Daubeny World Theatre. Season; but then we had earphones giving us translations, or sometimes it was ...

... Happy Hour LYRIC STUDIO THE LYRIC. Hammersmith could probably not have picked a better 60 minutes than Jonathan Adams' The Happy Hour with which to introduce late-night shows to the Studio. This satirical one-man assault on the idiosvncracies surrounding con temporary life jogging, religion, the media, music, football, etc.-- was conducted by Adams partly at the pulpit and partly at the ...

... Rhesus FOUNTAINS ABBEY OF SOME TEN or a dozen major critics I have consulted there is doubt in most of them as to Euripides' authorship of Rhesus and scorn of its value as a dramatic piece (one critic called it 'feeble' and 'insignificant'). Company of Three's production belies this assessment this important revival in a new per- formable translation by Richard Emil Braun comes close to ...

... Doctor And The Devils MANCHESTER MANCHESTER Contact Theatre Company are giving the first performances of The Doctor and the Devils which has been adapted for the stage by Charles Causley from a film script by Dylan Thomas, with music by Stephen McNeff. It is based on the old story of Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh bodysnatchers, which became a popular Victorian melodrama and was made into an ...

... La Sylphide LONDON FESTIVAL BALLET PETER Shchaufuss' reconstruction of Boumonville's La Sylphide ensures that London Festival Ballet has a wonderful offering for audiences for years to come. The ballet also offers opportunities to many different dancers, and at the Coliseum it was intriguing to see a young coryphee take on the title role. Deborah Weiss joined the com pany some eighteen ...

... London Studio Centre COLLEGIATE A SKIT on the pomp and ceremony surrounding the presentation of the Evening Standard's awards for the performing arts might have worked well, but Last Night Nerves consisted of very poor and tediously unfunny material It was given at the Collegiate Theatre for the last night of the Evening News London Student Drama Festival, and while it may have seemed ...

... Fille mal gardee ROYAL BALLET LA FILLE mal gardee never seems to be missing for long from the Royal Ballet's repertoire, but even so on its return to the Royal Opera House after an absence of what seemed like a very short year, it still managed to seem like a breath of bright sunshine. The truth is that this length ballet of Frederick Ashton's is so near-p>erfect in construction, and so ...

... Simone Forti WHITECHAPEL TO DANCE is to move but to move is not necessarily to dance, and the performance by Simone Forti at Whitechapel Art Gallery, given as part of the Dance Umbrella, dealt in raw and basic movement rather than dance. Likewise her companion. Peter .Van Riper, dealt in sound as opposed to music. Forti has been exploring the structure of the body and the forces which govern ...

... Extemporary Dance Co SHAW WHILE EXTEMPORARY Dance Company is generally regarded as one of the best of the small dance groups, the first programme presented at the Shaw Theatre, as part of both the Dance Umbrella and the Camden Festival, was disappointing. The problem was that there was insufficient variety of style or pace to be found among the five works, and in addition the music was in ...

... Dance South NUFFIELD THE TALENT of the young dancers of the new Dance South extravaganza, making their professional debut at Southampton's Nuffield Theatre, was Phenomenal. And the top-rate choreography from Elisabeth Schooling of the Marie Rambert school ensured a performance of moving and highly enjoyable ballet. Dance South, whose chaiiTnan is dance school chief Richard Clarke, was formed ...

... Triple Bill BALLET RAM BERT OUT OF THREE works by Ballet Rambert at Sadler's Wells two were choreographed within the last year fcy Richard Alston and Christopher Bruce (both British) and the third was a revival of a 1971 work by Glen Tetley (American). However, the internationally renowned Tetley did not show his best work in Rag-Dances. caUing on far too much energy from his dancers in a ...

... Kumari Rasika RIVERSIDE KUMARI RASIKA'S solo recital of the South Indian classical dance form, Bharata Natyam, at Riverside Studios was very impressive. There could be no doubt about Miss Rasika's highly developed skills and the authenticity of her work. As with most oriental dancing there is a vivid range of movement from the eyes, eyebrows, head, wrists, fingers and feet (with bells strapped ...