... Blackpool's set to rock 'n' roll By STAGE REPORTER THE country's biggest ever series of rock and roll revival concerts has been launched at the Blackpool Arena. Presented by former pop star turned impresario, Peter Jay, and one time roadie turned manager and promoter Hal Carter, the Rock 'n' Roll Legends season assembles a host of hit names from the sixties and seventies. The 1 7 week season ...

... Bambert Dance, 2nd Programme ROYALTY CENTRAL to this programme by the Rambert Dance Company was the unveiling of Touchbase, the new work commissioned from Merce Cunningham, made possible by the prized 1990 Digital Premier Award. At first sight Touchbase does not belong among Cunningham's master pieces, which pull together so tightly that the images have a lasting clarity, but it is nonetheless ...

... Cinderella COLISEUM IT'S not a great work, Ben Stevenson's Cinderella--the poetry is mild and the comedy grossly excessive so that the imagination is never stretched--but as these things go it has its moments. In its favour is the simplicity of the story-telling,so that the heroine's rise to fame is because of her encounter with archetypal charac ters, and this is enhanced by the ele gance ...

... A show of some strength ROYAL OPERA Samson et Dalila IT says a good deal about the way the world has changed since Elijah Moshinsky's original 1981 production of Samson et Dalila that the Royal Opera is now enabled to have two Russian principals as well as a Russian conductor for its revival. Vladimir Popov, seen as Calaf in Turandot at Wembley last Christmas, does not have the sheer charisma ...

... Aida SCOTTISH OPERA SCOTTISH Opera is back on form with a beautifully bold and vibrant production of Aida, revived from his own original by director Gilbert Deflo. The idea of staging it as a Victorian colonial epic is bizarre, but not outrageous. Apart from minor oddities like a Coptic priest worshipping Isis, there is a credible, even intriguing quality which sits more easily in this ...

... Chippendales banned in striptease storm By HELEN GOULD SEXY male strip act, The Chippendales, has been banned from a small town in central Scotland because local councillors feared that it would cause a drunken brawl. Councillors on the ten-strong West Lothian District Licensing Board refused to give the go-ahead for the show at Livingston's Forum Centre next month after seeing videos of the ...

... Competition news: THE STAGE received a packed mailbag of entries for our Tycoon cassette or CD competition, sponsored by Epic Records. Competition answers flooded in from readers eager to hear Tim Rice's all star translation of the French hit musical Starmania. Not everyone managed the right replies and one mystery entrant who got all three correct failed to give a name or address. For the ...

... Costumiers hope new guild will have cash recovery all sewn up By BRIAN ATTWOOD FREELANCE costume makers are forming their own 'union' to crack down on big businesses which drag their heels over payments. The Guild of Theatrical Costumiers was set up after a string of show collapses and liquida tions left scores of small firms at the back of the creditors' queue and with little hope of recover ...

... Cast walks out amid Plaisir closure row CAST members of Jersey's Chateau Plaisir cabaret floorshow walked out in disgust from a crisis meeting with management, insisting they will finish with the production from August 1. The ten performers blasted claims by Plaisir boss and managing director of the Modem Hotel group, Jonathan Segal, who said the show would continue if ticket sales picked up. ...

... Taboo plays to the front of the house By HELEN GOULD EDINBURGH Festival Fringe theatre promoters have skirted round licencing laws by staging their wacky show in someone's front room. The venue, known simply as Mrs Cooper's House, has been rented for a three week run of Taboo, star ring nutty double act Charlie Pink and Sidney Squeezy. An audience of just eight will be carefully selected by ...

... Cullberg Ballet PARIS THE Cullberg Ballet's Spanish programme at the Theatre dela Ville featured Mats Ek's new Carmen and a revival of his La Maison de Bemarda. The latter draws on Federico Garcia Lorca's 1936 play about a claustrophobic Spanish household in which a tyrannical mother dominates her five daughters For his powerful illumina tion of the harrowing work, Ek inter plays Spanish ...