... Sting stung for second pop concert PROMOTER Harvey Goldsmith has been forced to arrange a replacement concert after a fuse- box fire ended a performance by pop singer Sting. More than 2,000 fans left Newcastle City Hall disappointed despite an effort by the Tyneside-born singer to salvage the evening. The former Police member was about to go on stage at the City Hall when an explosion in a ...

... Moving into the big time PETER HEPPLE profiles the failed entertainer who is now a leading young showbiz tycoon THERE IS a certain youthful jokiness about Nick Thomas, still only 26, that might tempt some people to treat him lightly. But that could hardly be more misleading. In five short years he and his partner Jon i^onway, a year oiaer, nave become the fastest growing light entertainment ...

... Battle of the floating club Quadrini ready to repel rates boarders A 4,500 TONNE floating nightclub could be forced into making a once-a-year sea voyage to break a rates deadlock. The 10-mile trip down the River Tyne is one possible solution facing the owner of the converted car ferry, Tuxedo Pnncess. Michael Quadrini the 40-year-old owner of the highly successful nightspot could use the round ...

... The Comic Shop opens for business in Oldham By ANGELA THOMAS UNKNOWN Northern comedians are being offered the chance to star in a unique new showcase. Oldham's Coliseum Theatre has joined forces with local agent Stuart Littlewood to launch a series of shows aimed at giving unknown comedy acts the chance to perform in a theatre in front of leading agents and club and TV bookers. A spokesman for ...

... Throwing cautionand dwarfs to the wind By JEREMY JEHU THE PROMOTER who caused a storm of outrage when he ran the first national dwarf throwing contest last year claims his opponents are on the run as he prepares to launch the event world-wide in 1986 But the group which represents short stature people in Britain says it has abandoned protests on the streets only to concentrate on a ...

... Stage's act register comes to the rescue A YOUNG London based rock band has won the battle to hold on to the name it used to launch its career. Brother and sister Rita and Michael Farragher were shattered when they heard that a band using the same name they had used for three years was due to appear on a major television pop show. We'd used the name The Definite Article from the very ...

... Lympany heads new festival ANGLESEY is to have an Arts Festival in the Spring, which will be master minded by Anthony Hose, formerly of the Welsh National Opera Company, and now director of the Buxton Fes tival. The festival, which will be called the Beaumaris Festival, will be a four-day event starting on May 29. The mainstay of the festival will be music, with international concert pian ist ...

... SNO plans major new concert hall Lack of venue costs £100,000 a year THE SCOTTISH National Orchestra claims that the lack of a permanent concert-hall base in Glasgow is costing it £100,000 a year in lost box-office income. So now the SNO has prepared plans for a hall which it would like to see built in a vacant city-centre site, and Glasgow District Council has revealed that a major developer ...

... Talent spotting SWRB New Ballets IN THE past eight or ten years the development of nascent British choreographers for ballet has received increased attention. And as a consequence the need for opportunity and critical encouragement has been established, which is how the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet at Sadler's Wells found itself in the position of presenting an entire programme of works by ...

... Minimalists on the road AMERICA'S arch-apostle of minimal ism, Steve Reich, is bringing in a group of musicians for a Contemporary Music Network tour which opens at the Dominion on January 29. He and the band Glen Velez, Garry Kvistad, Mort Silver, Nurit Tilles, Edmund Niemann, Bob Becker and Tim Fer- chen will include two British pre mieres of Reich's music, New York Counterpoint and ...

... Striking Silence TABARD LOUISE HIDE has taken the theme of the break-up of a marriage and invested it with such freshness of approach and such understanding of what makes her characters--especially the female ones--tick that it comes up bright as a new pin, carrying the audience along spellbound as they share the emotions of three people to an end which, though logical, even inevitable, ...

... BP Genée Awards DOMINION THE QUESTION on the minds of everyone attending the BP Genée Awards at the Dominion Theatre was would a Gold Award be given? l ne competition, organised annuauy since 1931 by the Royal Academy of Dancing, does not automatically pro duce a candidate worthy of British ballet's highest student award, and the judges rightly adhere to very strict standards. This year, ...