... Between The Lines ETCETERA ALTHOUGH Alan Ayckbourn's debut in the field of the musical was inauspicious--he did the book and lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's only flop, Jeeves--his collaboration as lyricist on well over 100 songs with the composer Paul Todd at his Scarborough base has proved so ful our most prolific contemporary dramatist has claimed this musical activity has helped ...

... Playing it cool, calm and collected STRATFORD ON AVON As You Like It DAVID Thacker's production finds the many different strands of Shakespeare's play. The contrast between court and countryside is beautifully captured in Johan Engels' designs. Heavy, dark, palace interiors and sumptuous costumes reminiscent of Velasquez suddenly give way to a tracery of twigs and branches silhouetted against ...

... Measure For Measure MANCHESTER CONTACT theatre's production of Measure For Measure focuses on law, and the sixteenth century puritan ethic favouring capital punishment for fornication. One imagines the modern day parallel might be AIDS paranoia in our promiscuous society, but nothing in the production suggests this overtly. Most memorable moments in the evening are a sombre accordion ...

... Letting off steam QEH The Coronation of Poppea IT would not be stretching it too far to say that one of Opera Factory's missions in life is to make opera sexy. David Freeman has certainly done so with Monteverdi's opera, though it must be said that he is helped by Anne Ridler's translation of Busenello's libretto. The music may be cool in the old- fashioned sense of the word, soaring upwards ...

... Ernani CARDIFF THIS early Verdi work is of the ilk that nowadays gives traditional grand opera a bad name. An implausible complex plot, no real action, little opportunity for acting, just fustian stand 'n' sing nonsense with principals striking postures and belting it out stage while the chorus strive to provide suitable background upstage. And yet in the revival of their 1979 Elijah ...

... Shakespeare With Vegetables TOWER THEATRE I MUST pay tribute to a unique institution. The Tavistock Rertory Company which has just celebrated its Diamond Jubilee recently the Company concluded its 1l5th season at the Tower Theatre, Canonbury Place, with the world premiere of Shakespeare With Vegetables, the first full-length play by David Shannon. Shakespeare With Vegetables is a quite ...

... Don't Rock The Boat FARNHAM DESPITE doubts about less serious plays in his programme notes Robin Hawdon has scored an instant success with his first true comedy Don't Rock THE Boat which discusses many family and business problems and aspirations in a beautifully crafted play. After all, life with all its success and failure, mainly the latter, is one huge comedy. The playwright has, there ...

... Safe In Our Hands COVENTRY ALL this production at the Belgrade proves is that comedy is certainly not safe in the hands of Andy de la Tour. A play billed as a satire on the NHS turns out to be a tired old bums, balls and bedpans farce of the type we hoped had pegged out in the fifties. Every medical cliche and cari cature has crawled out of the hos pital woodwork to sport itself on stage: a ...

... Land gives Warehouse new home By HELEN GOULD PROPERTY giant Land Securities is providing Croydon's Warehouse Theatre Company with a new home in a joint deal with Croydon borough council. This week the company, celebrating its 1 5th anniver- sary, unveiled plans to move to a new purpose built venue close to its existing building, which is due to be demolished to make way for a fresh devel ...

... Allen is named as Arts Council deputy WATERMANS Arts Centre boss Mary Allen has been named as the new deputy secretary-general of the Arts Council. Allen, who joins the council in September, worked as a professional actress after emerging from Cambridge University during the sev enties, where she had appeared with the Footlights. She performed at London venue The Bush at Shepherds Bush before ...

... Sexual politics are overrated SHAFTESBURY A Slip Of The Tongue WITH the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe, playwrights are somewhat tentatively exploring the implications, but it is clear that in many ways they have been caught on the hop. Many of them were inclined to the left anyway and in the past it was comparatively easy to write plays in which the freedom to enjoy social ism, as ...

... Bedroom Farce RICHMOND THIS comedy belongs to what Alan Ayckbourn calls his Bedroom Period; he has by now used up virtually every part of the house and its environs - by employing three bedrooms and four couples he puts the audience in the happy position of being able to laugh over the plexities of marriage, as it were, in a mirror whose surface reflects the mayhem inflicted by people con ...