... Decaying London UPSTAIRS Sleeping Policemen DOWN IN Peckham, two short plays were written by Howard Brcnton and Tunde Ikoli, and were further made fit for dramatic presentation by a group of actors and director Roland Rees. The collaboration, bleeping g Policemen, is now at the Royal Court Upstairs, presented by Foco Novo, a S: vivid, fascinating, penetrating picture :$of life in a decaying, ...

... Woven thematic thread GATE THEATRE Gardenia JOHN GUARES Gardenia premiered here, is an oddly beautiful flower. It tells of the attempt of four American civil war veterans to establish an ideal socialist community on Nantucket Island. We first meet them in crisis; Joshua's (Blain Fairman) manuscript returns re jected from the publisher; Lydie (superbly acted by Lynn Webster) decribes a ...

... A message with play OVAL HOUSE Virgin on Disaster THE TITI.K of this plav seems to have little to do with the plot if the stringing together of vaguely related sequences can be called a plot. It is not a plav with a message but rather a message with a plav. This is unfortunate, for the message is one which should be given. It concerns the treatmcnl of prostitutes by the law and with subtlety ...

... The Devil Rides Out Again BATTERSEA ARTS CENTRE NHW THEATRE'S founder directors, Michael Birch, Susie Baxter and Jude Kelly are this season joined by Alan Cowan and Thomas Hcnty in the work begun by Battersea Arts Project, pro viding workshops in the local communi ty as well as producing a range of shows in the centre. The Devil Rides Out Again, the first of these, is a ghastly melodrama ...

... NEW YORK CITY OPERA Turandot NEW YORK City Opera's new production of Turandot continued the season's success. In very spectacular but thoroughly tasteful sets and costumes by Beni Mon tr esor, the production looks gorgeous. It is staged by Jack Eddleman as a kind of superior oriental musical comedy, com plete with tumblers, stylised balletic processions, and 'shadow figures' behind Ping, ...

... Ostentatious title for mixed event COLISEUM Great Ballet Gala THE OSTENTATIOUSLY titled Great Ballet Gala, at the Coliseum, began late with the terse announcement that Carla Fracci and Gheorge Iancu would not appear because they had not been able to rehearse. Clearly there were tensions enough backstage to unsettle any audience, and no explanation was offered at the moment when Anthony Dowell ...

... Eagling blessed by his three beautiful muses ROYAL BALLET Apollo APOLLO BY the Royal Ballet showed a marked improvement, after a 12-month absence from the repertoire. Balanchine's choreography now seems to have become a part of Wayne Eagling's sub-conscious; golden haired and fair of limb there was such detail and understanding in the roundness of his classicism, against the taut ...

... Body and Soul WATFORD THEOLOGY IS not a fashionable subject for British dramatists, though its practitioners are a different matter. Roy Kendalls play is likely to attract an audience for whom the debates of the Church of England synod are, at best, of mere academic interest. But his subject matter is of relevance to the whole of ecumenically motivated Christendom. It is presumably ...

... Suffering from being a mite old-fashioned VAUDEVILLE Dial M for Murder THERE IS no doubting the phenomenal success since 1950 of Frederick Knott's thriller. It ran a year at the Westminster Theatre and two on Broad way. It has subsequently been produced in over 30 countries and translated into 25 languages. It now comes back to the West End. Apparently Knott had made some revisions but it is ...

... Slipstreaming OVAL HOUSE THIS IS a play which attempts to discuss the lesbian world and its political implications. It is not an entertaining play, although it tries to be, and without that element it has little power. Jt concerns an older woman, younger woman relationship which runs aground when the younger woman becomes involved in lesbian politics (and with another woman). Any attempt to ...

... Boris blend COVENT GARDEN Boris Godunov COVENT GARDEN'S new production of Boris Godunov by the Soviet film director Andrei Tarkovsky, his first opera venture, generally does excellent service to the work, reflecting the unique blend of objective chronicling and subtle dramatic colouring of .Mussorgsky s original version. There is some perhaps pardonable ar tificiality in the relief of the ...

... Tame and shapeless CRAMER DANCE COMPANY Do you know Fia Jansson? ALAS, THK opening performance by the Cramer Dance Company at the Bloomsbury Theatre provided many members of the audience with one of their worst evenings of 1983, the sort that can make you run from the theatre and never return. It was all the more distressing since this Swedish company tours throughout its land, taking ...