... The Threepenny Opera ST. MATTHIAS OLD CHURCH SO LET'S put the show on right here in the barn! Or in this case, in the church. St Matthias Old Church is apparently the oldest complete building in the London Docklands. and it proved to be a most unusual, quite inappropriate, but also rather charming venue for this lowest of low budget produc tions of The Threepenny Opera. This was the first ...

... Fancy that! Gate His Lordship's Fancy WITH this 1752 Goldoni farce about an upstart philandering Marchese brought low by the local peasantry (given in Joe Farrell's modern-sounding translation) the Gate concludes its international season of four plays touching on the turmoil beneath the Age of Reason that was to erupt with the French Revolution, the dramatic harbinger of which we have hitherto ...

... Curlew River MUSIC THEATRE ULSTER MUSIC Theatre Ulster's presentation (for the BOC Covent Garden Festival) of Britten's Curlew River is an impressive achievement. There is a wonderful commitment and concentration to the performance, with the virtuoso instrumental writing expressively handled by the small band ot musicians. The staging was in St Paul's church, a venue, the Christian ambience ...

... Rose English Royal Court ROSE English, much championed as an indefinable avant gardist has, true to form, come up with a new indefinable revue. i antamount tsperance employs five immortals in a theatrical limbo- land invaded by two magicians, three musicians, an aerialist and a tango dancer. It would be hard indeed to assemble a more dischordant bunch. Gravely bearded and suited as the title ...

... Scenes from a Men's Changing Room Royal Court ADVANCE publicity told us that Edward Lam's Scenes from a Men's Changing Room was inspired by pictures by David Hockney and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. i ne programme on me nigni informed that, in lieu of a literal changing room, the action was to take place in a cinema, a cafe, a classroom, and an interrogation room. Personally I was ...

... The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol MANCHESTER THE INNOVATIVE Theatre de Complicite is without doubt one of the most electrifying and challenging theatre groups which aims, not only to raise awareness of humanitarian issues but also to stimulate and involve its audience on every level. This it certainly achieves with a stunnine new work The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, based on a short story by ...

... Annus Horribilis GLASGOW IN THE tradition of the political lampoon, the Tron Theatre Late Night Show spreads its net widely over the national and local scene, taking a host of prominent characters to the cleaners ranging from Royalty to television luminaries, from party political leaders caught in the public glare to municipal meanderings, where a low profile is sought. A bright, sparkling ...

... Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays SCARBOROUGH ALAN AYCKBOURN'S delightful children's play, packed with all the excitement and fascination of a festive show, should find its way on to a much wider stage. For while it is a wonderful piece of entertainment, he stretches the young imaginations with a brilliantly innovative yet highly amusing script, which has appeal to children from nine to 90! It tells ...

... Annie LIVERPOOL LIVERPOOL Playhouse, high on presentation, with a big production of Annie knowing that with kids and a dog, intricate chorus work, scenery that comes and goes and a director Roger Haines who never lets the sentiment vere close to the syrupy, there was no way to lose. Designer Lez Brotherston, pass ing from penury with the orphans to opulence at the Warbucks' Fifth Avenue ...

... La Traviata OPERA NORTH MEMORY is a notorious trickster, but Opera North's production of Verdi's La Traviata is not so much a revival (the third, at least) as a new staging. Francois Rochaix (director) has wanted to deepen his interpretation, has rethought and changed much. Yet, the production remains a ragbag of effects and ideas which tend to coarsen and distract from the work's inner ...

... EDR LILIAN BAYLIS YOU HAVE only to recall the London visits of Marcel Marceau to remember that mime has tended to inhabit a rarefied world of melancholy and poetry where the virtuosity of the performer counts for a lot more than any evance to the real everyday world the audience has left behind. Although Marceau did do mime versions of short stories called from Gogol and Chekov it would be ...

... Spellbinding delight ENO Xerxes NICHOLAS Hytner's production of Handel's only satirical opera, here revived by Julia Hollander, has come around for the fourth time, and the striking originality of the staging continues to cast its spell. This most artificial of operas, which incorporates a number of solos in the London street ballad idiom, is made even more artificial by Hytner's felicitous ...