... Shiny Nylon WOMENS PLAYHOUSE TRUST AS PART of its Life in the City ventures which aim to bring theatre to abandoned buildings, the Womens Playhouse Trust cast its eye on S Shed, a cavernous concrete warehouse in the Royal Docks, and made it safe for performance. Safe maybe, but with half of the punters huddled in blankets on the cold stone floor, and the more privileged in old cinema seats ...

... Laid Out Lovely LEEDS A BALLET dancer appears on stage, wine glass in one hand fag end in the other. She looks tipsy, she moves awkwardly and she giggles. She is Emilyn Claid and she declares in her movements that what we are about to see is not a celebration of blissful romance. Work.;,,, r,m the Yorkshire I nas used a striking isic and poetry to prou nng examination of our >>n- cepts of ...

... Irek Mukhamedoy and Company with Arc Dance Company SADLER'S WELLS THIS mixed programme by Irek Mukhamedov and Company and Arc Dance Company served as a focus for the multi-faceted talents of Irek Mukhamedov-- once star of the Bolshoi and now star of the Royal Ballet-- as dancer, actor and charismatic Personalirv. And the two best items also revealed him in a spectac ular new partnership ...

... Candoco QEH CANDOCO a company whose membership includes physically handicapped dancers in wheelchairs has already established itself as an ensemble of compassion and daring. Dance for this company is about people and trust, and the qualification for membership is sensitivity towards human beings. Whatever the merits or otherwise of mixing the able and unable bodied, the policy forces ...

... Carmen ROH THE ROH's revival of Bizet's Carmen, in Nuria Espert's 1991 staging, opened without the scheduled leading lady, Denyce Graves, who was suffering from a viral infection of the vocal cords. In the event, the dark vixenish Carmen of Magali Damonto (the last-minute replacement) turned out to be a considerable plus in an otherwise pretty dismal first night. Denyce Graves has now entered ...

... Young's conducting all the right moves ROH Rigoletto MUSICALLY, things are definitely looking up at the ROH. Faced with the prospect of yet another Nuria Espert dud, a revival of the 1988 production of Verdi's Rigoletto, expectations were thoroughly confounded as Simone Young (conductor) lit into the opening scene with venomous glee. Young is a major rind. She has a superb grasp of overall ...

... Toutes Femmes THE PLACE TOUTES Femmes came about because Janet Archer, Director of Newcastle's Dance City, thought it was time that more women were promoted as choreographers in the male dominated world of dancemakers, and the resulting programme of five new works came to the Place as part of Spring Loaded. Debbi Purtill's Sea of Stories for three women and two men (chaps weren't totally ...

... Sylvia ROH IF YOU enjoy having the grandness of tragedy overtaken by comedy of pantomime-type dimension, then David Bintley's Sylvia is for you. But while many audience members roar with delight at the laugh-a-minute frolics of, for example, the tappiry dance for the newly blinded Amynta, or the drunken orgy in Orion's lair, or the peg-leg dance of Eros disguised as a pirate chief, it is the ...

... Dirty Reality NOTTINGHAM RAW energy sums up this co-production between Nottingham Playhouse and Black Mime Theatre. Directed by Denisc Wong, it's based on research by the company into the street and youth culture of Britain's Black community. Another step in the Playhouse's bid to redress cultural imbalance, the production blends young peo ple from the area into Black Mime's normal highly ...

... BLOOMSBURY THEATRE Danzabierta CUBA boasts an internationally renowned classical ballet company, but the country's contemporary dance market is more of an unknown entity and something Marianella Boan is attempting to redress. Formerly a dancer with Cuba's Contemporary Dance Company, she broke away to form Danzabierta in 1 988, and has since performed her 20 or so words which she cites as ...

... Jen ufa ENO JANACEK'S operas have the miraculous power to impassion the spirit with the fires of humanity, to suffuse the heart with joy and rapture, to rekindle the zest for life. As Susan Bullock's radiant and transfigured Jenufa accepted the faithful Laca (the superb Kim Beglev) in the final utes of the new ENO production of Janacek's Jenufa, the moment was unbearably moving. And yet the ...

... La Boheme ENO I WAS not much taken with Steven Pimlott's rum and lifeless new staging of Puccini's La Boheme for ENO last September. The current revival retains the tone of the original but, to my eyes, is a much more characterful affair. And it's not just that there's an interval between Acts III and IV. Hugh Vanstone's lighting less insistently 'zones time' but rather more effectively ...