... Pre-pollution Rhine maidens WNO The Rhinegold WITH CONFIDENCE the Welsh National Opera have launched into Wagner's awesome The Ring Of The Nibelung. The epic cycle is to be staged over the next two years, and to judge Irom the production team's achievements in the The Rhinegold, which sets the scene for this tale of love and lust for power, there is much to look forward to. Not that ...

... Equity under attack from NYT director As protest over entry rules grows JEREMY JEHU reports EQUITY LEADERSHIP has rejected claims that it is deliberately blocking moves to dismantle the union's entry restrictions after coming under heavy fire from the founder of the National Youth Theatre. NYT director Michael Croft has accused the Equity council of dragging its heels over enforcing a ...

... Coward classic--not to be sneezed at after 60 years QUEEN'S Hay Fever NOEL COWARD'S comedy Hay Fever is almost 60 years old, and fresh as a daisy, as we see in the revival, directed by Kim Grant at the Queen's. His Bliss family, with mother Judith, retired grand actress, at its head and father upstairs a lot of the time writing one of the novels which keep the home pot boiling, are at their ...

... NEW YORK One Touch of Venus NEW YORK'S enterprising New Amsterdam Theatre Comnpany exists to revive forgotten musicals, often in semi- staged, concert form. It's latest offering, Kurt Weill's One Touch of Venus, was one ol' the most successful. Its book, by S.J. Perelman and Ogden Nash, is about a statue of Venus coming to life which acts as a zany peg for a mild satire on Manhattan life ...

... CHATS PALACE Alive and Kicking SENIOR CITIZENS have recently been celebrating National Pensioners Day of Action and the Age Exchange Theatre has been formed to provide entertainment for those of pensionable age. Watching the group makes one aware of the rights of the elderly. Just how many old folks realise that help is at hand if they need it? It is this unawareness and possible unwillingness ...

... OPERA NORTH Cosi fan tutte IT HAS been an enhanced pleasure 10 return to Opera North's production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, whose chief glories originate in the contributions of the conductor and a fine cast. They help minimise the miscalculations in other departments. John Pryce-Jones offers a finely- judged reading, in which tempi are apt, the dynamics subtly graded and the contrapuntal ...

... ROYAL BALLET Manon WHEN Natalia Makarova makes her entry as Manon she is too flirtatious as if she had never learnt reticence during her convent upbringing, and as if she is a star desperately trying to establish her level of interpretation. But immediately she sets eyes on Anthony Dowcll as Des Grieux the chemistry engages between the two and the entire performance lifts on to a high plane. ...

... Successful Strategies LYRIC STUDIO DELICATELY sharp, suavely satirical, charmingly witty, Pierre Marivaux's Successful Strategies has joined the Shared Experience season at the Lyric Studio. Hammersmith, along with the Marivaux False Admissions. Again, love or would-be love, the path to marriage and marriage itself are the pivot of the comedy, in which Marivaux wonderfully blends fun ...

... The Philanthropist NEW YORK ADDING TO the seemingly endles list of modern British plays being revived in New York, the Manhatten Theatre Club i- has staged an excellent production of Christopher Hampton's The Philan- thropist. This witty, ingenious and thought- provoking play wears well, and can now be seen as pointing the way towards a new emphasis on verbal wit and self- analysis in ...

... A riotous romp DANCERS ANONYMOUS Ruth's Piece THE OPENING item by Dancers Anonymous at The Place (Ruth's Piece by Ruth Carney) was brisk and bright with pleasant enthusiasm from the dancers, who showed good feeling for the stage if not the fledged intensity of the true professional. Some of the pieces that followed started well and then went woolly as if they had been arranged by people with ...

... Romance ORANGE TREE KEVIN MANDRYS new play, Romance, is a cynical examination of love. Alice is a writer of pulp romantic fic tion, Simon, her son, a reporter on a local newspaper, is infatuated with Em ma, a fellow journalist, who has in turn fallen for an emigre Latvian poet. Each is chasing a romantic ideal they cannot achieve. Alice's writing is an escape from a lonely existence, Simon's ...

... The Iron And The Oak CHICHESTER THIS TEXACO/NYT Playwright award winning piece by the Bishop of Chichester's son was presented as part of the Chichester Festival Theatre TENT season. Edward Kemp certainly knows how to build tension, and how to introduce the unexpected and yet one is left feeling that the naivety of the characters and the romanticised approach to terrorism reflect the ...