... Mr Cinders BLACKPOOL IN A break from its past coupic of Christmases the Grand Theatre has opted for a seasonal show where the boys really are boys and the girls definitely girls -- albeit somewhat champagne bubbly ones. ITie musical comedy Mr ^inaers first saw the light of day in 1929, was revived two years ago and was in Blackpool for a three week run prior to a national tour for Charles ...

... Frankenstein THE PLACE WITH Frankenstein, the Graeae Theatre Company was, for the first time, making a total departure from production which focus on disability presenting, instead, a straight adapta tion of Mary Shelley's classic novel. It needs little imagination, however, to see why the story would be of particular interest to disabled perfor mers. For the novel, and hence the play, deals ...

... R. B. MARRIOTT braves the diatribes at the Warehouse What, if anything, is on offer here? WAREHOUSE Mohicans THE Yorkshire company, Major Road Theatre, came to the Donmar Warehouse with Mohicans by Garry Lyons, a well observed and grittily written saga of a pair of young men living in a seedy part of Leeds who are discriminated against even to the point of persecution, without ever really.. ...

... From a Jack to a King LIVERPOOL FOLLOWING the successful run of his Return To The Forbidden Planet Bob Carlton presents at the Everyman his second Shakespeare pastiche From A Jack To A King, a sturdy framework into which are packed scores of rock numbers. Dialogue is cribbed from almost all the Bard's plays with a strong hint of parody but though the idea was novel and very clever the ...

... Hindle Wakes LIVERPOOL WRITTEN in 1911 Stanley Hought-on's Hindle Wakes, now at the Playhouse, stands as a fine period piece reflecting the morals and the mores of bygone Edwardian Lancashire. ou muni iiiiuriiiauuu ib iruwucu illiu the dialogue that, at times, it seems as though it has been crafted purely from the historical angle. A woman's honour has been flouted. Fanny Hawthorn ...

... Melancholy Jacques BUSH MELANCHOLY Jacques, the one- man show about Jean- Jacques Rousseau, first seen at the Edinburgh Festival, is having a season at the Bush with Simon Callow again playing the writer-philo sopher. Rousseau is on his lonely island alone, books at his feet, a tent for his house. He studies nature, talks of man and beast, and harsnly criticises the theatre as he deals with ...

... Clarissa NEW YORK AGAINST ALL odds, two American scholars and a young stage director have succeeded in making an extremely effective theatrical adaptation of Clarissa, Samuel Richardson's classic English novel. Actually, their long play just over three hours is the first part of a trilogy and takes us only to Clarissa's flight from home with the two-faced Robert Lovelace. Florian Stuber and ...

... A Day At The Opera, A Night At The Races CHAUCER THERE SEEMS no particular reason for trying to re-create the comedy of the Marx Brothers at all. But if it has to be done, it is as well that it is accomplished as ably as by the East End Theatre Company in Mike Schirn's A Day at the Opera, a Night at the Races, an award winner in the South London Theatre Centre's play competition. Without ...

... WHAT Happened in the Town of Goga is to be premiered on February 16 by the School of Slavonic & East European Studies, at ULU (1 Malet St, WC1). Written by Slavko Grum and freshly translated by Harry Leeming, it is one of the new translations entered for the 30th Sunday Times National Student Drama Festival and hoping to win the Michael Imison Translation Prize of £400. Others include a ...

... Orphee UPSTREAM JEAN COCTEAU'S modern working of the Orpheus and Eurydice legend, set out somewhat pompously in his Orphee, is being given a showing by Floorboards at the Waterloo Upstream. When it was first staged almost 60 years ago, the work caused a stir on account of its unconventionality and original touches, and a searching into matters such as religion, homosexuality and the role and ...

... Homosexuality and treachery J.R.L Reyner on a finely handled controversial play LEEDS A Patriot For Me JOHN Osborne's controversial play A Patriot For Me is receiving its first- ever regional repertory production at the Leeds Playhouse. Because of its explicit homosexual scenes, especially the drag ball with high-ranking officers wearing women's clothes, the play, immediately after its ...

... Pump Boys and Dinettes CHICAGO IT ISN'T often that two productions of a show run simultaneously in London and Chicago. Although it really isn't fair to judge one relative to the merits of the other, one usually is stuck in the position -- especially when both offerings are seen within weeks of one-another. Pump Boys and Dinettes has been running for some time in the West End and has settled ...