... Carr's-a-coming VIKKI CARR returns to London for the first time in many years for a concert at the Royal Festival Hall on June 30, presented by Capital Gold and Alan Field in association with Geoff Petts. ...

... Club given chance to pay debt A TROUBLED Birmingham nigh cash deal which will inject co Hummingbird. the city's top live Secret talks have been going on between Whitbread Brewery and the management at the Dale End club for several weeks. Lloyd Blake, financial director of the Hummingbird, the only black- operated nightclub in the city, said the brewery planned to give a £100,000 loan to ...

... Espinosa memorial TWO EVENTS in July will com memorate the life and work of Bridget Espinosa, founder of the London Studio Centre who died last December. At noon on July 2 there will be a memorial service at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, and on July 14 there will be a Gala performance at Sadler's Wells. Patrons of the Gala which will be presented by past and present LSC students, and guest ...

... Café opens up to serve comedians WANNABE comedians can put their wit to the test on a real audience and could even win their chance to turn professional at new East London cabaret spot The Comedy Café. Launched tonight the venue is a converted warehouse in Rivington Street and the brainchild of actor Tom McCabc, founder of Notting Hill's Gate Theatre. It marks the continuing boom of ...

... Empire's in the cash wars By HELEN GOULD LEADING London variety venue the Hackney Empire has been forced to make heavy cutbacks to its 1990 programme after being crippled by a run of financial disasters since the New Year. The East End venue says it has been left struggling to survive, while its expansion plans have had to be shelved because of a succession of cash blows. The Empire started ...

... Festival ousts Sussex Aids appeal SINGER Hazel Dean's bid to raise thousands of pounds for an AIDS charity with a gala concert at a leading south coast venue ended in failure this week. Dean, who had a chart hit with the Stock, Aitken and Waterman pro duced song Who's Loving Who, agreed to headline the May 25 show on behalf of the Sussex Aids Trust. Proceeds from the event would have been ...

... The Black Mask BRIGHTON THE POLISH avant garde composer he who invented the operatic scream, to our great relief- Krzysztof Penderecki and the wailing lament, has recently turned to neo-romanticism. Not the soothing melody of soft strings is evident in this showy piece at the Brighton Festival so much as a 90 minute unrelenting and often incom prehensible high-pitched succession of noises, ...

... Giselle SADLER'S WELLS SO FINE was her playing of Giselle recently in Northern Ballet Theatre's production (by Christopher Gable) that, for the moment at least, Trinidad Sevillano has eclipsed all other memories. The fusion of dancing and acting was like a dream: it occurred seemingly spontaneously- or it had at least been worked at until it had Decome second nature and had no need of ...

... Kirov Ballet COLISEUM THE SLEEPING Beauty, coming after the Kirov Ballet's Le Corsaire and Swan Lake, seemed a lesser production. With Beauty we are accustomed to shows of dignity that regard whatever historical period is chosen as the reason for grandiose celebration, but Oleg Vinogradov's production plays ceremony and context. His idea is apparently to present as much display dancing as ...

... Spirited away SADLER'S WELLS Cumbra Flamenca CUMBRA Flamenca begins with slow rhythmic tapping of sticks like a warning of tension belonging within an ancient tradition. It is also like a meditation, a religious preparation for what will follow. Imperceptibly the rhythms accelerate and suddenly the floodgates of speed in song, music and movement are opened, and we are immersed in scenes of ...

... A Matter of Chance RIVERSIDE IN TERMS of percentages The Kosh's achievement in A Matter of Chance might be divided up as follows: 75 per cent brilliant; 15 per cent perplexing and 10 per cent tedious. The brilliance was in the staging, in the marshalling of a five-strong team through a scenario involving the rigours of travelling, arriving and switching back into the past. The perplexing bit ...

... It's a physical game FRANK GRANVILLE BARKER, mindful of how Aled Jones is getting his kicks these days, tackles 'acres of Italian recitative' RAM IL Matrimonio Segreto THE TROUBLE with Cimarosa's opera buffa is that its music keeps reminding us of Mozart's and Rossini's without being nearly so good. Still, it's a good-natured piece, well crafted and readily tuneful, which so pleased Leopold II ...