... Holt goes commercial FORMER ROUND House director, Thelma Holt, is to join a major new West End commercial production company. Holt, who lost her Round House job when the venue was forced to close and eventually sold to Camden Council, has been appointed executive producer and administrator of the Theatre of Comedy Company which was officially launched earlier this year by producer Ray Cooney ...

... WEST END production company Triumph Apollo has established a new long-term outlet in London after a deal with theatre-owning radio station, Capital. Triumph Apollo has reached an open-ended agreement to stage productions at the Capital Radio- owned Duke of York's Theatre starting last week with the limited-season return of the successful School For Scandal. Duncan Weldon, TA's chairman and ...

... Kipling CHICHESTER ALEC McCowen's new one man tour de force at the Chichester Festival Theatre brings to life the complex character of Rudyard Kipling who, of late, has not been fashionable. If anything is likely to bring about a revival of interest in Kipling it is this original presentation using his books as an insight into the man. Brian Clark has written an interesting script ...

... Two Planks and a Passion EXETER A NEW historical play is a rare and welcome addition to the theatrical scene these days, and Anthony Minghella's Two Planks and a Passion which received its world premiere at the Northcott Theatre can be expected to be repeated many times in the future. Set in the year 1 392 when the Master Painters of the City of York stage a Corpus Christi play, it is both ...

... Don Juan TAUNTON JOHN RE TALLACKS production of Moliere's Don Juan for ATC is undoubtedly a worthy effort. ATC is one of the best of our touring com panies, who show that an efficient full scale production can still be portable. Don Juan is well organised, with ingenious props, actors with stage pre sence and a director with a sense of style. Emund Falzon gives a perform ance of heroic ...

... Madam Butterfly ENO ENGLISH National Opera's revival of Madam Butterfly at the Coliseum again gave us a score based mainly on Puccini's third version but adding restorations from the 1904 versions. Whether or not the alterations to the familiar score, and the condensing of the second and third acts into one long me, strengthen the impact, the power of the music is still there, compelling us ...

... Ballet Folklorico de Mexico NEW YORK THE BALLET Folklorico de Mexico, giving its first New York season for five years at the City Center, has grown more theatrical and spectacular, and less balletic, during the 30 years since it was founded by Amalia Hernandez. The dancers are if anything more proficient than ever, light in their lumps, precise in their tapping foot work and in the timing of ...

... Easily digested LANCASTER Measure for Measure MEASURE FOR Measure may not be the most frequently performed of Shakespeare's plays but there is a familiarity about it which is at once unnerving and, by dint of recent events, remarkably contemporary. Director David 1 hacKer nas cos tumed this second offering of Lancas ter's Duke's Playhouse new season in modern trappings, slowed the text down ...

... American venue strengthens links with Britain JEREMY JEHU repoters THE CALIFORNIA venue which aims to become America's National Theatre is out to strengthen its links with Britain. The Old Globe Theatre of San Diego is waiting to hear in the New Year whether it will be invited to bring productions to London as pan of an American drama festival projected for 1985. And the three-auditorium ...

... Solent have re-formed HAMPSHIRE'S professional community theatre group, Solent People's Theatre, has recently been re-formed and is now back in action, touring youth clubs, schools, community centres, hospitals, old people's clubs and village halls. At present, the company is touring its own Christmas show Rosic and the Big Freeze, which has music by Phil Hazel wood. Peter Rowe i* the ...

... STEVE ABSALOM reports STAFF AT the prestigious Plymouth Theatre Royal are playing down the simultaneous decision by two top executives to leave the venue only months after the general manager was sacked. Chris Hayes, artistic director of the Plymouth Theatre Royal Company, and head of marketing Chris Grady both handed in their notice last week. But a Theatre Royal spokesman told THE STAGE that ...

... JEREMY JEHU reports ON THE market after the collapse of the musical Jukebox, London's Astoria Theatre could become a West End rival to famous Victoria rock outlet, The Venue. Astoria owner Laurie Marsh, who said two weeks ago that he was selling the theatre because of his disgust with the West End theatre establishment which, he claimed, failed to help save Jukebox, told THE STAGE that ...