... Respecting Your Piers TEWKESBURY Peter Quilter's new play, Respecting Your Piers, makes its first showing at The Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury. Five girls of various ages inherit a pier. The previous owner, now deceased, was respectively father, son, boss, husband and lover to the ill-matched group. They are left to get on with it and instructed to run it profitably until the end of the season. ...

... The Constant Wife NORTHAMPTON DIRECTOR Peter James has brought to this delightful twenties bitter-sweet period piece a brilliance and calculat ing air that is anything but dated. Right up to its wonderfully piquant climax, the play is sharp and enticing, leaving its audience eager for every word and every movement, making it one of the most outstanding recent productions of a play of this era. ...

... The Star Spangled Girl GRACE THEATRE NEIL Simon excels when writing about mis matched couples living in leaky studio apart ments, sleeping in the closet, and drinking cheap Scotch because the plumbing doesn't work on the 15th floor. The Star Spangled Girl, getting its London debut at The Grace Theatre, 28 years after it was written, features Andy and Norman (of Barefoot in the Park fame) as a ...

... Once was probably enough ISLAND Once On This Island THIS IS the kind of show one desperately wants to like, particularly as it marks the reopening of one of London's most neglected theatres, the Royalty. The theatre is transformed into a Caribbean environment of palm trees, steel bands, rickety thatched roofs and rum punches. Imagination, the conceptual design compa ny, is responsible for this ...

... George WORTHING WORTHING'S long association with Emlyn Williams found fresh expression when Stifyn Parri projected phases of the author/actor's early life in which dreams and reality are commingled to emerge in later years as his powerfully descriptive autobiography, George. Many years ago, in November 1961, the Connaught Theatre staged what was to become one of the most successful productions ...

... The Salt Wound EDINBURGH STEPHEN Greenhorn's new play fits well into the canon of 7:84 Scotland a community in dissipation, an industry in decline. Yet the drama lies not in industrial politics, which get a glancing mention, but in intense and heartfelt emotional conflict. When 24-year-old Michael turns up at his grandmother Brigit's home in a fishing village 'on the northern edge of Europe' ...

... Wonderful silliness and visible talent RIVERSIDE Le Crque Invisible LE CIRQUE Invisible is a distillation of Le Cirque Imaginaire, conjured up 20 years ago by Victoria Chaplin (daughter of Charlie) and Jean Baptiste Thierree. It is an extraordinary, yet engagingly funny piece of theatre. That just three performers (the couple are joined by their son, James) can offer so much skill, and nurture ...

... Barry Resort Holiday Centre BARRY ISLAND By DEREK WAYLAND END of season holidaymakers at the Barry Resort Holiday Centre joined talent scouts, civic dignitaries and special guest Brian Hibbard (Coronation Street's Doug), for a gala Showcase staged at the centre's Pig And Whistle Showbar, proceeds from which benefited the Royal National Institute for the Blind (Wales) Appeal Fund. Song and ...

... As light as a rose petal BROMLEY Giselle/Counter Balance Emma Manning Picture: Peter Mares Fragile and ethereal--JANE SANIG as Giselle, London City Ballet. ...

... Flat Spin IPSWICH A BRITISH premiere and an exciting night at the Wolsey Theatre. This is a new English version by Ray Herman of Franco Brusati's play, directed by Caroline Smith. There's nothing to go on--all we know is it's Italian. The names are kept Ricky Gagliardo is under a form of subtle siege in his flat which is the object of desire of the neigh bours, Mama Caruso, sinister Panizza ...

... Chasing the Moment SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE CHASING the Moment is written by and stars that master of understate ment, Jack Shepherd, detective ace in Wycliffe and the unlucky John Stalker in the controversial Shoot to Kill. Set in a grubby, bottle strewn fag covered pub basement in Peckham, a jazz band convene for that night's per formance. In between clearing up, jamming and generally shooting ...

... Cymbeline ETCETERA THEATRE CYMBELINE could be filed in the drawer marked 'plays that no one would attempt to stage if they weren't by Shakespeare.' 1 he tale of love and jealousy is so full of twists, turns and cliffhangers that it would make even the most brass necked of soap opera producers blush and is lent a surreal air through being set in and around the prosaic sound ing Milford Haven. ...