... Optimistic outlook for Ayr Pavilion after council u-turn HOPES are rising that Ayr Pavilion will be saved from redevelopment, will continue to function as a venue for live music and will retain its potential as a theatre. After inviting purchase bids for the 80-year-old Pavilion, scene of the earliest Popplewell variety tri umphs in the town, the debt-rid den owners, Labour-controlled Kyle and ...

... Roberts' elephant walk escape CIRCUS entertainer Bobby Roberts is not to be prosecuted by Blackpool Council for walking his elephant on a Blackpool street. But he has been given a stem warning by the resort's public protection com mittee, which fears the animal could be a danger to the public. Roberts was reported to the council by animal welfare campaigners after he took three year old Indian ...

... Russian ballet is to go ahead By ROBIN DUKE FEARS that a leading Russian ballet company had called off its British tour have been dismissed by its tour promoters. Newcastle-based Now Leisure Marketing said that despite the political turmoil in the USSR, the British tour of Moscow's La Classique Ballet would be going ahead as planned. For a while the company's UK debut visit did appear in ...

... The Threepenny Opera BIRMINGHAM DIRECTOR Anthony Clark and Musical Director Mark Vibrans set a very deliberate tempo to both music and dialogue. It's good for clarity every syllable of Brecht's social com mentary in the lyrics gets its full weight and attention, but it gives the produc tion a slow, heavy pace which is, ini tially difficult to lift. Marc Blitzstein's 1954 translation and Kate ...

... Musicians attack JazzFM over new music policy ANGRY musicians this week attacked London independent local radio station, Jazz FM, over its new music policy, which they claim could distort the public's understanding of jazz. And Jazz FM founder has Dave Lee has resigned from the board, fol lowing reports of his growing dissatis faction with the station's new direc tion. Changes in the style of ...

... RECESSION has hit this year's international trade show of the Professional Lighting And Sound Association with bookings down by almost 15 per cent for the event next week. Cost cutting companies have toned down their presence at the ninth annual trade show which has been cut back to occupy only three floors of London's Olympia 2 conference cen tre. However, PLASA is hoping its show could ...

... Sir Jasper Tries It On FESTIVAL CLUB THE FARCE of a farce that not only sends up the form but vindicates it triumphantly. Sir Jasper has droit de seigneur and gives himself a few more rights besides, like trying to bump off his wife with some handy arsenic This dastardly plot is foiled by almost everyone else, each more improbably than the laat, by leaving either a purgative or an ...

... The Noise And Smoky Beneath Show ASSEMBLY ROOMS THIS devised piece for schools and com munity centres takes 30 poets from and about Glasgow. From the moment the first solo read is interrupted by the other three performers sneaking in, to the last rumbustious chorus their approach is less than reverent. They take us on a journey round Glasgow by bus and by underground as well as through the ...

... Ave Maria ASSEMBILY ROOMS THIS IS the one-hander that does speak of a life beyond, where the surface does indicate an existence before and after the performance. And Linda Kerr Scott is a comic actress at the height of her powers using her body as if she was a jumping jack, or a demented rag doll after electric shock treatment, filling the stage with the narrowness and pain of her life. ...

... Driftwood HARRY YOUNGER HALL RAW POWER Theatre's production of William J Wright's new play is a penetrating exploration of human relationships under pressure of dark surprises, and at the same time a political parable on Gorbachev-era East-West relations. Jacob and Kate are happily married until Emilia arrives out of the blue from Poland; she is determined to stay and have 'a happier life' in ...

... Slight Possession RICHARD DEMARCO GALLERY TALKING Tongues is a young company of evident talent and innovative skill. Sasha Hails and Rachel Weisz fuse dia logue, often highly repetitive, movement which is frcquendy highly physical and even dangerous, and minute observation and changes of mood to create a highly- charged atmosphere, the context for the disturbing and weird relationship of the ...

... The Chance EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE STUDIO IN THIS Orwellian-stylc fantasy superbly enacted by Dusi (Durham University Student Theatre) the world has been taken over extra-terrestrial beings, the 'Fasters' who never appear but whose presence is all- pervasivc. Consumerism and technological- progress are pursued with extreme efficiency and ruthless individualism, and human rcl- t Kinships have ...