... The Hothouse PURCELL ROOM THE HOTHOUSE was the umbrella title given to a September weekend at the South Bank, for which performance and discussions had been organised by dancer-choreographer Sue Maclennan. Programmes were advertised as Wild andExotic Contemporary Dance. I attended the last performance, which was def initely wild but definitely not exotic. If we were to view this as ...

... Turandot ROH THE ROYAL Opera House has launched its 1990/91 season with a revival of Andrei Serban's brilliant staging of Puccini's Turandot. What a pleasure to encounter a production which brings depth and power to a work too often buried beneath a glitzy excess. Serban and his designer, Sally Jacobs, have created a dark, milling world whose citizenry lurk in shadows and throng to public ...

... They've got the power ANN NUGENT on a high energy performance SADLER'S WELLS Les Ballets Africans IN ANY performance by a visiting folk dance company audiences will look both for stylistic features and for what the dances reveal about the visitors' homeland and its people. To some extent Les Ballets Africans glossed over the possibilities for character revelation by focusing all the time on ...

... Partenope MIDSUMMER OPERA THE UNLIKELY setting of 90 Grange Road, just off Ealing Common, with rain despoiling an attractive garden set for Handel's 1730 opera, proved to be as close to bliss as possible. Not even the elements dared oppose this rare revival, and it was staged in a narrow square of lawn with a remarkable sureness ana comic touch. Updated to the twenties Partenope (Lorelle ...