... NO NEW theatre reference books unless one counts The London Theatre Scene (Frank Cook Publications, £4.95) and The Pocket Guide to London Theatre, by George Kimball (Xanadu, £4.99), both of which cover the same ground, namely a handy guide to all the London theatres. The first has seatmg plans of all the major London theatres and concert halls; the second does not have so many, or such ...

... NOT MUCH doubt about which is the most sensational of the current crop of show business life stories. The honours go to Barbara Windsor, one of the most popular and genuine people in the profession, whose autobiography Barbara: the Laughter and Tears of a Cockney Sparrow (Century, 12.99) reads as if it might make a television mini-series one of these days. Laughter and tears is about right, ...

... A Time To Speak by Anthony Quayle (Barrie and Jenkins £16.99) Few autobiographies by actors have been as well written as this elegant and informative account of one of the most interesting and vivid theatrical careers of this century, beginning in 1931- Croydon Rep- and moving through theatre, films and television at home and abroad until his recent death. Quayle was also of course a director ...

... Timeless British dance selection BOOK AND ALBUM REVIEWS ONE of the most interesting dance band records of the last few months has been produced by none other than Chris Barber on the Timeless label, Called Hot British Dance Bands, it features, as might be expected, a number of bands whose leaders occasionally indulged the musicians to the extent of allowing them to record the jazz standards ...

... Engaging anecdotes As the Actress Said to the Bishop, by Derek Nimmo (Robson Books, £9.95) Not for nothing has Derek Nimmo won a reputation as one of Britain's top after-dinner speakers. For one thing he has for many years been collecting theatrical anecdotes on the grand scale, not only about his contemporaries but about Tree, Kean, Macready and many other lions of the bygone stage. For ...

... Buildings past Loughborough's Stage and Screen Mercia Cinema Society, £14.25 Delve into the history of practically any small English town and you will almost certainly find records of a theatrical past. Lou^iborough. north of Leicester, for instance, is scarcely on any touring schedule these days, but Mervyn Gould and his fellow researchers have inearthed details of no fewer than 12 theatres, ...

... Rix takes affectionate look at the Farce Lane THEATRE As might be expected, Brian Rix is a learned apologist for farce. Not that in my opinion he has anything to apologise about because, to my mind, the West End is a sadder place if there is not at least one farce running. Life in the Farce Lane (Andre Deutsch, £20 hardback, £12.00 paperback) is a light hearted look at the genre, from Roman ...

... Facts but none too personal COMPILED BY PETER HEPPLE BIOGRAPHY The two musical forms which have always appealed to trainspotters are opera and jazz. Both have given rise to enormous numbers of books which are full of lists, of performances and recordings, and Alan Jefferson's biography of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Victor Gollancz, £22.50) is no exception. In one of the appendices there is a ...

... Insightful look at Marie's love It is easy to nave misconceptions about Marie Lloyd. One of them is that she was a large lady with an immoral lifestyle and an act that caused continual outcry from the middle classes, so much so that she was banned from taking part in the first Royal Command Performance in 1911. The truth is that, in her youth at least, she was slim and attrac tive, appealing ...

... Luscious coffee table reading What better way to begin the New Year than with an enjoyable book? Peter Hepple reviews a selection I am never quite sure whether the term 'coffee table books' refers to the size of the books themselves or the table you have to rest them on. But there is no doubt that Red Hot and Blue, by Amy Henderson and Dwight Blocker Bowers, comes into both categories. It ...

... Vintage bunch of memories Summer Wine and Vintage Years Robson Books £14.95 There are those of us who remember Bill Owen, or Bill Rowbotham as he was then, as a stalwart of Unity Theatre as actor, author and director. Later on, he broke into professional acting, with significant small roles in films, parts in the West End and men a contract witn tne Kank Organisation. All this in addition ...

... Bebop: the Music and the Players Oxford University Press, £22.50 It is astonishing to think that Bebop is now 50 years old and probably still strikes some people as dissonant compared with the small and big band swing that immediately preceded it. But it has become both durable and widely accepted, and is every bit as much a classic form as New Orleans and Chicago jazz. One might say that it ...