... Dublin Gaiety hit by musicians row Grand reopening may be all at sixes and sevens ANTHONY GARVEY reports A DISCORDANT note is threatening the ambitious plans for the reopening of Dublin's Gaiety Theatre later this month following a £750, 000 renovation. The Irish Federation of Musicians and the Gaiety management are in dispute over the strength of the orches tra for the planned Christmas panto ...

... Bentine still serving up his brand of the ridiculous Comedian Michael Bentine actually started out as a Shakespearean actor. ANN NUGENT traces his career. WE THINK of Michael Bentine as a comedian who has endeared himself to us on stage, television and radio through his particular brand of the ridiculous (The Goons, It's A Square World, The Bumblies, The Flea Circus and so on). It s ...

... Talent search THE FINAL of the Golden Opportun ity Talent Search at Lakeside Country Club, Frimley Green is to be a charity gala in aid of the Breast Cancer Re search Fund and the Bone Marrow Transplant Appeal. Appearing in the September 2 show are Les Reed, Joe Longthorne and Frankie Vaughan, who will be doing short spots, as the most concentration will be on the winners, who are Angle Giles ...

... New jazz venue A NEW weekly meeting place for jazz musicians and enthusiasts has opened at Blackpool's South Promenade Star Hotel. Ice Drome musical director Tommy Melville together with Leo Robson front their Modern Jazz Ensemble each Sunday in the hotel recently taken over by former Mardi Gras and Belle Vue Hotel licensee Barry Eastwood. The sessions are seen as a meeting for local and ...

... Aboriginal band to play for martyrs A LEADING Australian aborigin al band will join the celebrations at the GLC's Tolpuddle Martyrs 150th Anniversary Festival. The band, No Fixed Address, will be among the musicians appearing at the festival in Battersea Park on July 29. Other artists appearing at the Festival which is being staged jointly by the GLC and TUC include blues musician Paul ...

... Live shows are set to return to Keighley LIVE THEATRE is set to return to Keighley (West Yorkshire) after a lapse of 30 years. The town's former Matcham-de- signed Hippodrome closed in 1955 and was demolished in 1 1 to make way for a bus station. Now members of a Worker's Co-operative are busily gut ting the former Classic Cinema in North Street, and when it re-opens to the public it will ...

... Premieres THE LONTANO Ensemble, directed by Odaline de la Martinez, gives the London premieres of two music theatre works at the Bloomsbury Theatre on July 29. They are The Arrival of the Poet in the City, scored by George Nicholson with text by Christopher Logue, for which Neil Cunningham is the narrator, and Kate Kelly's Roadshow' a piece by Edward Cowie featuring the mezzo- soprano ...

... Music hall in Surrey THE OLD time music hall group the Entertainers are appearing at the Edwardian Fair organised by the National Trust at Morden Hall Park, Surrey from July 26 to 29. ...

... Carousel MANCHESTER THE FIRST London professional production of Carousel was 34 years ago, now Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre is staging the first major professional revival of the work. With 32 people on the stage, a large technical team, and a seven piece band, this is the largest production ever mounted at the Exchange and on the theatre's round stage it bristles with difficulties. ...

... Frayn buzzing with Chekhov in embryo LYTTFI TON Wild Honey KNOWN BEST to us as Platonov, Chekhov's earliest full length play has come to the Lyttelton as Wild Honey in a version by Michael Frayn, who has the benefit of being familiar with the Russian language. Directed by Christopher Morahan, the production is a joy, the first part Chekhov in embryo, as it were, with landowners losing ...

... Rain BRIXTON THIS NEW play by Gregory Motton, performed by The Ezra Theatre Company, is an intriguing piece loosely based on the story of Noah and the Ark and set in a London which has been invaded by the Chinese and reduced to the proportions of a village. There is some subtle humour. The creepy Mr. Sly (John Fahey), for example, when referring to the rising flood water and growing civil ...

... Say the Word TWICKENHAM HEATHAM HOUSE Youth Theatre, following the success of their new musical version of The Prince and the Pauper, have come up with another compilation of words, music and plot, this time some four centuries on and several light years removed in concept to the last. Adrian Worsfield, a full-time lecturer at St Mary's Training College, Twick enham and associated for ten ...