... Steafel Solo KINGS HEAD SHEILA STEAFEL has adorned so many television and radio shows with splendid comedy cameos that a one-woman performance is long overdue, particularly as her studio work has prevented her from showing us what a fine stage artist she is. Only in A Day in Hollywood--A Night in the Ukraine has she come to theatre atten tion in recent years, and from that show she has ...

... A star in the making LYRIC Arms and the Man TWO THINGS stand out about the expensively mounted revival of Arms and the Man at the Lyric--that Shaw's 1894 comedy is measuring up to the passage of time extremely well and that Alice Krige is destined to be a star. Nevertheless, a very strong all-round company has been selected to do justice to Shaw's light-hearted parable about the folly and ...

... Harvest AMBASSADORS IN LONDON, Mrs Marian Wade is the disenchanted wife of a doctor and the mother of polite, superior sons. In the small Midlands village where she was brought up, and to which she has returned at the beginning of Ellen Dryden's play, for her grandfather's funeral, she is the discontented, clever one ot an ordinary lamny. Long on wit, she is decidedly short on charm, ...

... And Yet I Live DE NOVO PRODUCTIONS COSTUME PLAYS are so uncommon nowadays that (he appearance of a new one is something of an event. In And Yet I Live which was given its premiere by De Novo Productions in the Little Theatre of Ca pest horne Hall, Cheshire, Vera Arlett has chosen one of the most interesting periods in English history, the early part of the reign of Henry VIII and the ...

... The Learned Ladies PENTAMETERS THE MOLIERE TIDE which ii gradually returning to wash the shores of our often far too insular theatre has been foaming around an adaptation of the rhyming couplet translation by Richard Wilbur, updated by director John Mangan to the era of the salons of the Princcsse de Polignac and her coterie. Visually it looks charming and the formality of the language fits ...

... Daphnis and Chloe SYDNEY DANCE COMPANY HAS GRAEME MURPHY won too much responsibility too soon, I wonder, for not only does he direct the Sydney Dance Company (Sadler's Wells), but he is also the company's chief choreographer and sometime dancer. Such a pressurised combination rarely works fully, and 31 -year-old Murphy s sensitivity towards creating movement takes second place to his ...

... Pleasant charade ENO Cosi Fan Tutte JOHN COX's English National Opera production of Cosi Fan Tutte neatly sidesteps the insoluble problems of improbability and impossibility that the work throws up. It plays down the farcical elements, peoples the stage with extraneous characters that give some air of actuali ty, lets the characters express themselves with what plausibility they are allowed ...

... Of The Dying, Of the Dead, Of the Living RIVERSIDE STUDIOS EKKEHARD SCHALL, who made a distinctive impact when he appeared with the Berliner Ensemble in London 15 years ago as Brecht's Aruro Ui and Coriolanus, is at the Riverside Studios with a one-man show of Brecht poetry and songs, Of the Dying, Of the Dead, Of the Living. Schall sings and speaks the verses plainly and directly for the ...

... The Prince and the Mouse LITTLE ANGEL THE GREEN EYES of the little fairy mouse certainly cast a spell of their own in this delectable adaptation of pan of Goldsmith's The Citizen of the World. It is a fable for adults, of course, and very wisely treated as such, though there is plenty to engage the eye of younger members of the audience. Lynn Farleigh speaks the narration and the exquisite ...

... A play that combined fable, fantasy and farce --by Jennifer Reeks REVIEWS ALAN BLEASDALE could almost be described as a writer of tragedies were it not for the fact that he writes comedies. His latest Play For Today, The Muscle Market, (BBC- 1, Tuesday January 13, 9.25pm) was a work of deep Liverpudlian melancholy with the built-in inexorability of Macbeth. But, most of all, it was a comedy in ...

... Choreographic Evening GUILDHALL SCHOOL AT SADLER'S WELLS, the effect on the theatre's rebuilding fund will be greater than the effect of dancers from some of the major companies appearing together in one programme. This was apparent from the preview at the Guildhall School, for while I welcome the enterprise of Nick Grace in getting dancers and young choreographers to join forces with young ...

... Revival of 'L'Elisir' ROYAL OPERA L'Elisir d'Amore JOHN COPLEY'S gaudily artificial production of L'Elisir d'Amore has old-fashioned painted scenery and plenty of extravagant colour, but strictly avoids burlesque or caricature, and again gave much delight on its revival at Covent Garden. The simple theme of drinking a quack potion to acquire courage in a faltering love-affair may be ...