... The Unforgiven THEATRE WORKSHOP THIS TRAGIC story of the decline of a comedian opens on his corpse, which gets up to address the audience, transformed to the engaging Billy Bolton in his hey-day, lewd and crude, compering his own life story, introducing in jokey, slick comedy routine, the flashbacks which contrast with the bright stage persona, to show the ugly reality of his life off-stage. ...

... Not Walking On The Cracks DIVERSE ATTRACTION NOT Walking On The Cracks at the Diverse Attractions, Riddles Court, is a musical play by the Theatre Touring Tayside Company. Its author, John Harvey, tells a moving story of a run-away teenage girl that tackles the problems of mental health and homelessness in a downright and practical manner. The young girl meets and beds down with three down-and ...

... Grea Davies MARCO'S LEISURE CENTRE GREG Dames at the Tic Toe Theatre at Marco's is a one man show presented by the Rough and Ready Theatre Company and starring Greg Davies, the main male actor in the company. It begins with some slides of him in early life and then the young man himself tells us his life story so far, but it is hard to tell whether it is fact or fiction, but which ever it is ...

... An Evening With Gary Lineker ASSEMBLY ROOMS AS A mere survivor of the World Cup year Monica experiences the night of July 4, 1990 rather less passionately than others. While Bill does his wall- charts and gets to fever pitch about England's most important match in 24 years she is left alone to fantasise. Her only ally in the sex war is Brigitta, who as a German tour guide, is also distinctly ...

... Stroking The Pigeons ST COLUMBA'S-BY-THE-CASTLE THIS unadventurously-titled new play by Adrian James started off very promisingly, the mise-en-scene of the action skilfully set; three awkward- looking, laconic young characters enter an empty old house to squat the night and the tensions unfold. Yet from the entrance of the fourth party midway through the plot, a mentally-retarded woman who has ...

... Action swoops to club's rescue By NATASHA FIELDING The news came hot on the trail of the city treasurer's winding up proceedings against the Dale End club, which specialises in live music and discos for ethnically mixed audiences. Blake said the new company had raised £500,000 in loans and all debts would be paid within six weeks. The city centre premises are owned by the council. The annual ...

... PURCELL ROOM Julyen Hamilton IN his Song In Two Sets, the British choreographer and dancer Julyen Hamilton, who lives in Amsterdam and operates as a European peripatetic, provided one of the most thought provoking programmes of the entire Dance Umbrella. Working as a lone dancer he set up an exchange of ideas with Becke Hinnerson, a Swedish musician that was free-flowing and imbued with a ...

... Don't lose your head THIEVES who stole a life-size trick guillotine from controversial horror act Nightmare could be in danger of chopping off their own heads or inflicting serious injury if they attempt to use the prop, worried pro ducers have warned. The Walsall troupe lost its entire stage show when thieves made off with a trailer carrying lighting and sound equipment worth £10,000, ...

... Protest delays drag artist's final curtain By HELEN GOULD LARGER-than-life sixties drag artist, Jean Fredericks, is causing controversy even in death with a family row erupting over his final send off. Fredericks, alias French-Canadian musician John Frederick Watson, died last week at the age of 63 after suffer ing a heart attack. His spectacular cos tume balls at Bayswater's Porchester Hall ...

... Staff offers free service to keep venue open By HELEN GOULD STAFF at a remote west country arts centre have agreed to work without pay for the summer season in a bid to keen the venue open. Sterts Arts and Environmental Centre on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall is doomed to closure unless long-term funding is found before the end of the summer. The rural venue, established six years ago with the assis ...

... Royal victory as surplus cash rises By HELEN GOULD PLYMOUTH Theatre Royal has scored a remarkable financial victory, reporting the biggest surplus in its ten year history. Audiences rocketed by more than 50 per cent to a record 400,000 dur ing 1 99 1 boosting box office takings by almost a quarter, to £3 million. The turnaround has left the theatre with a trading surplus of more than £232,500, ...

... My Night With Reg CRITERION KEVIN Elyot's play is the first show to go from the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs to the West End. It won't be the last, but it'll take a good one to better it. It has been glibly dismissed by some as 'a gay Ayckbourn'. But My Night With Reg is more than the comedy of social manners you might expect. It's a play for today, about coming to terms with life in the ...