... Too Little Toulouse WATER RATS THE DELIGHTFUL intimate music hall ambiance of the Water Rats Theatre is the perfect venue for Rhubarb Alley's production of Too Little Toulouse by Simon Towrtley and Gary Willis. Set at the turn of the century in the Naughty Nineties, this pastiche of Feydeau farces and romantic operettas of the time takes an amusing look at the hypocritical moral values of the ...

... Fifties singing star pulls out after one song FIFTIES singing star Ruby Murray was forced to pull out from her current tour three weeks early after collapsing onstage at Ayr's Gaiety Theatre writes Brian Attwood. She broke off after completing her first song in the production, the Fabu lous Fifties Show and told a shocked audience, I'm sorry, I can't sing any more. Murray staggered ...

... Swing-on-sister STEPHANIE LAWRENCE, dynamic West End star of the smash-hit musical Blues In The Night breezed into Scarborough to check out the resort's 2,200-seat Futurist Theatre a week before the show opened there during its 16 week provincial tour. She not only received a blue skies welcome but met a local tenor sax jazzman BARRY (BAZ) HAMPSHIRE (above) for an impromtu 'busking' send-up ...

... 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 ...

... Playing it safe PAULINE LORIGGIO sees Lloyd Webber consolidate his position SHAFTESBURY Song and Dance WITH his tried and trusted knack of capturing the heart, rather than the mind of an audience, Andrew Lloyd Webber guarantees another safety in numbers night out as eight year old Song and Dance returns to the West End. As he already has four other musicals running in London and three on ...

... 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 ...

... Flying horse puts a stop to show PERFORMANCES of Carousel at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds had to be abandoned when faulty machinery grounded the show's flying horse. The mechanical horse takes the hero up to heaven, but difficulties with it during last Saturday's matinee led us installers to recommend it should be shut down on the grounds of safety until repairs could be made. The ...

... Treasury tax reforms are a turn for worse CLUB managers have complained to Parliament that they are getting a raw deal from the Treasury. The powerful Club and Institute Union, which has more than six mil lion members and 3,500 branches, says high tax and rates charges are threaten ing to send variety venues into immi nent collapse. It claims that recent protests over the effects of tax and ...