... Invisible Friends SCARBOROUGH MASTER playwright Alan Ayckbourn proves he is as much at home writing a modern style of pantomime as he is penning award winning adult comedies, with his latest play which had its world premiere at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. Beneath the slick 1980s style dia logue lies the traditional panto theme good overcoming evil. Ayckbourn's subtle treatment of the subject ...

... The Duchess of Malfi STRATFORD WEBSTER's dark revenge tragedy sits as naturally in the RSC's Swan Theatre as though it had been written for it. In Fotini Dimou's design a great, gilded doorway leads the actors through to a bare, shiny-black stage, which can be cut off from the rear of the 'court' by a full-length curtain to create the intimate space of a private chamber or drawn aside to ...

... Exchange SOUTHAMPTON YURI Trifonov's Exchange, which is receiving its British premiere at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, has been an almost permanent fixture on the Moscow stage since it was first produced in 1976. Russian audiences have acknow ledged the play's wryly honest por trayal of modern Soviet life, based as it is on Moscow's chronic housing shor tage. But the play's concerns are ...

... Just what the doctor ordered BILL McCOID welcomes a traditional approach to a classic MANCHESTER She Stoops To Conquer 'The ingenious Dr Goldsmith has devised a plot exceedingly probable and fertile' the characters are 'for the most pan entirely original', the play contains 'genuine wit and humour' So said the London Momtng Chronicle after the premiere in 1773. Over 200 years later the truths ...

... A clever psyche PETER TATLOW on a children's world premiere FARNHAM Matilda MOST theatres have a world premiere or two to their credit, but none is likely to be more memorable than the Redgrave's first showing of Matilda adapted by Rony Robinson from Roald Dahl's exciting children's book. Already booked for a 1 5 weeks national tour, Matilda deserves to go much I further afield and it ...

... A mighty struggle ANN FITZGERALD on a fight that misses the mark STRATFORD ON AVON Coriolanus AS ITS name implies, Coriolanus is the centre and focus of Shakespeare's play, and its action hinges on that proud Roman's qualities as a war machine, a warrior of unstoppable power and ferocity. It s precisely these qualities whicn Charles Dance seems unable to con vey. Though the patrician scorn ...

... Party Piece MARGATE PARTY Piece seems an apt title on which to conclude the first year of the re-opened Georgian Theatre Royal at Margate. Yet one can only hope that any celebrations by owner Jolyon Jackley will be under more control than the chaotic happenings in Richard Harris's new play. The idea of yuppies taking over an old house in what was formerly a working class neighbourhood, still ...

... Hanging The Landscape BRISTOL THIS WAS the second play in a season of four by Bristol-based company Show of Strength presented upstairs at the Hen and Chicken pub, the city's first regular theatre venue south of the river. It's a brave venture, taking over where funding problems have forced the Bristol Old Vic to leave off the risk-taking business of staging new works in its New Vic studio. ...

... The Taming of the Shrew WORCESTER PAT TRUEMAN'S production gives a clear-sighted, coherent reading of the text which leaves no doubt in the minds of the audience that, beyond Petruchio's 'taming' of Katerina's angry spirit and caustic tongue, lies a love-match for two strongly individual characters. Judicious cutting (the Christopher Sly episodes are completely removed and other scenes ...

... Night and Day CARDIFF TOM STOPPARD'S love-loathing attitude to his original profession, journalism, is most powerfully caught in one of his best plays, Night And Day. In the decade since its first staging Fleet Street may have dispersed and technology revolutionised the printing process and its economics, but the Rat Pack mentality is, if anything, even more rampant. Cheque book journalism, ...

... Cabaret LEICESTER IN TERMS of the ten all-time great musicals, I've always rated Cabaret as an also-ran. Stage versions of the musical don't really stick in the mind and for most people Cabaret means the film, memorable for its stunning performances by Joel Grey and Liza Minelli. Certainly the parts they ed, the Master of Ceremonies and Sally Bowles, are the pick of the piece and ...

... The Chippit Chantie PERTH FOR THE benefit of the English, a chantie is Scottish for a chamber pot and this play about a somewhat fragmented specimen has been adapted from a German classic by the late Scots actor Victor Carin. He has made it a tale of rural life in a Fife village of some 200 years ago with the widow Jemima Tait bringing her smashed pot to the local court and seeking to find the ...