... Burrell's subtle strategy in this play, which blasts salvoes at misplaced pat riotism and racism, is to let the characters speak for themselves, so avoiding melodramatic soliloquies on the cruelty of war. Irony and the occasional onc-liner, whether about ...

... sec retary. Zareen Hogarth, James Innes- Smith and Gary Olivier are amusingly effective as a trio of idiotic conformists who speak and dress alike; and Mark Carlisle's boss is a suitably ruthless smoothie. Yet the mannered perfor mances are one-dimensional ...

... symbolic. None of this matters though as th ...

... token good guy Cleanthes, drably played by Ian McCurrach as a wringing-wet example of filial devotion. The stan dard of verse-speaking varies wildly. Iona Kennedy's Brummie accent is her only way of differentiating between an upper-class and lower-class tart ...

... force. All this is well-handled with no hint of patronising condescension, and the achievement of showing how ordi nary folk speak and live is such a rare sight, in any British an form, it is always engaging. What undermines the work, howev er, is the shift ...

... pseuds. This time the relentless journo is Tony Slattery. He looks good, dresses smartly, has an erudite tongue, is polite, and speaks well to camera. But if you play it too straight and without more than a hint that a spoof is involved remember Richard Dimbleby's ...

... Rylance and Ian Charleson, is not matched by most of the surrounding cast. The implausibly young Claudius (Scott Cherry) cannot speak the verse: it is not important that he gives the Elizabethan pronunciation to perse vere. The Gete thee to a nunnery scene ...

... have arguments, discussions and assorted browbeatings, all conducted in that curious flowery mixture, a combina tion of ad-speak, politicospcak and a dash of Patience Strong, that their writer, Carla Lane, has invented for them. The brand new adventure ...

... no will stating who should take charge of his family firm, Heytesbury, the West End's largest theatre landlord. Solicitors speaking from the entrepreneur's business base in Perth, Western Australia, said months of search ing had failed to produce evidence ...

... what is the point of sending-up the sublime unless it is done trenchantly with a ground ing in contemporary reality? An actor speaks here in a lofty voice, suitable for noble and ele vated sentiments: it earns a quick laugh, but that style of acting is all ...

... achieve control over it. Add to this Pinter's dialogue, brutal and salty in the case of Max, elliptical and menacing when Lenny speaks, mostly empty and non-committal in the case of the other men, and you have a play that is both naturalistic and mysterious ...

... woman nervous of making another mistake. The play is set in Melbourne, and these American actors' unsuccessful attempts to speak 'Strine,' which sometimes result in unintclligibility, are the only flaws in their sympa thetic and convincing performances ...