... Brisk revival KENT OPERA Falstaff JONATHAN MILLER'S production of Verdi's last opera was first seen three years ago and this revival has been restaged by Amanda Knott, assistant on the original KO staging. It moves briskly along at a remarkable pace under Roger Norrington. Unfortunately the opening night took some time to settle down, not really breaking even until the final act. Thomas ...

... ROYAL BALLET Swan Lake THE ROYAL Ballet has two new Siegfrieds: Jay Jolley, lured from Festival Ballet, and Jonathan Cope, plucked from the company's own corps at the start of his second year. Both men are tall and good looking in the true danseur noble mould, with a refined grace and sensitivity. Cope gives every sign of developing into a dance of note. Given his natural assets it would be ...

... Expressive music: poor expression ENO The Valkyrie IN THE English National Opera's new Valkyrie at the Coliseum we were ofl'ered a feast of nobly expressive music not quite nobly served. The essential ingredient of magnificent Wagncrian voices was not there, and the orchestral sound, instead of spellbinding, frequently lacked bite and balance, at times too subdued for atmosphere and drama, ...

... From mediaeval liturgy to rock 'n' roll OLD VIC Blondel THE ANSWER to the question - can Tim Rice survive without Andrew Lloyd Webber? - is quite definitely yes, to judge by Blondel at the splendidly refurbished Old Vic. Stephen Oliver, a composer whose productivity equals his versatility, is an admirable collaborator, able to switch iiuiii uiuuiacvai liturgy iu iuck u run and, in the ...

... Just lacks heart CAMBRIDGE Dear Anyone DEAR ANYONE has been around for a few years. It was originally a record album, and later Hot Chocolate actually took one of the numbers, I'll Put You Together Again, into the charts. Presumably the album was always intended to be a sampler for a stage version, and at last it has arrived at the Cambridge, with a snappy. New York wisecracking book by ...

... Nuns embarrassing pupils AMBASSADORS The Actor's Nightmare/Sister Mary Iqnatius A DOUBLE bill by an American writer, Christopher Durang, brings Maria Aitken to the Ambassadors in a number of parts, as several actresses in The Actor's Nightmare and as a nun in Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You. The first play has Walter Plinge coming upon a stage he knows not of, and being ...

... OVAL HOUSE Poppies POPPIES IS a masterful and interesting play by Noel Greig. It is about homosexuality, death and war- witn a good deal of humour thrown in. Having said that, however, it is a play with a message and therefore not purely entertainment. It begins with two old men (Robin Samson and Ralph Smith) having a picnic on a hill overlooking London. The tension of the situation is not ...

... NEW END Love Matters AN AMUSING, light-hearted collection of songs about all aspects of love. Love happy, love sad, love adulterous, love homosexual, love betrayed A trifle saccharine, but often entertaining. Though Cass Allen's lyrics are speckled with the inevitable groaners (You're gone I'm all alone there's enough wit to carry the evening through. I particularly enjoyed her Sondheim spoof ...

... Steaming WHEN IT concentrates on the comic, this Htlwards-Macl.iam.moir production of Nell Dunn's Steaming is very good indeed. Barbara Brennan makes a marvellous Josie, lull of erotic exuberance and streetwise know how. Li/ Davis gives a line, often moving performance as the slow-witted Dawn, and Anna Heffernan is excellent as her mother. It's when the two middle-class characters Nancy ...

... Neglected Crusoe KENT OPERA Robinson Crusoe IT IS AMAZING that an opera of the calibre of Offenbach's best work should have only been performed professionally twice. Robinson Crusoe, which was successfully staged by Opera Rara during the Camden Festival 10 years ago, did not arouse sufficient interest to ensure other companies giving it an airing. It is to be hoped that Kent Opera's superb ...

... METROPOLITAN OPFRA Les Mamelles de Tiresias THE METROPOLITAN Opera certainly outdid itself with its centennial celebration concerts a marathon lasting eight hours. TV viewers could see for themselves what a fantastic array of talent nearly 100 international singers had been assembled. There were incongruities David Hockney's set for Les Mamelles de Tiresias making a very odd background for ...

... Most profitable cash crop ROYAL COURT The Grass Widow ONE HAS the mischievous impression that Snoo Wilson might have thought of the title of his play The Grass Widow before he actually wrote it. It seems almost too apt for this story of the wife of a recently-deceased marijuana farmer who turns up in one of the remoter parts of California to claim her inheritance, and Finds there an ...