... Jolson Victoria Palace I must admit that I was not too enthralled with the prospect of another trawl through the life and times and songs of another show-business legend. But Joison is brilliantly crafted by writers Francis Essex and Rob Bettinson, who concentrate on just two periods of Jolson's life, his rise to super-stardom and his triumphant comeback as a tire less Forces entertainer and ...

... Red Princess Croydon Brezhnev's daughter, Galina, was some character. When young, she wore the trappings of state. But as time and the USSR passed on, she became a caricature of the worst Soviet excesses, living her days an alcoholic in a council flat, obsessed with the circus. It is sound material for a play, and Nicholas Mclnemy has made a good call in choosing to put this tragic buffoon on ...

... Way is hard going but good Lyttelton The Way of the World Congreve's play has a number of elements that distinguish it from the Restoration comedies that immediately preceded it. To be sure, there is a dissection of the foibles and fancies of the fashionable, and an opening act in which we are mentally fumbling to sort out the characters. But there is also a hardness and sophistication ...

... COMPILED BY JULIET McCARRON Jack Tinker has consented to be our 'Rag- Picker', a Master of Ceremonies for our revived Green Room Rags, and we have among our cast a wide variety of actors. wnat makes trie Kags different to other charity events is that they are made up of playlets and sketches using the actors to do what they do best act. It will be fascinating to see a cast larger than that of ...

... Up on the Roof Hornchurch For the avid theatregoer, a cross between hippy musical Hair and Bernard Slade's touching comedy Same Time Next Year would be an unlikely combination but the result would doubtless be a show like Up on the Roof. This a cappella seventies drama by Simon Moore and Jane Prowse begins in 1975 at a stu dent house in Hull, with the anar chic flower-power graduates ...

... I Have Been Here Before Worcester JB Priestley's use of quasi-scientific theories of time for the plots of several of his plays gives them a dated feeling now, and this is far from being the best. However, as Mark Babych s production at the Swan shows, other qualities the writer's sense of the interpendence of human beings, the warmth of his humanity and the psychological insight with which he ...

... Shocking and gritty cabaret Drill Hall The Second Coming For The Second Coming, Nigel Chamock has trawled through his last three shows, Resurrection, Original Sin and Hell Bent, and discarded the extraneous material to produce his most succinct piece to date. unamocK s laieni ne spouts slick fountains of verbos ity, sings like a cabaret queen and sends up every dance form going has never been ...

... Top of the Town Croydon People who do not like musicals often criticise them for their obvi ous lack of realism. When do you ever see anyone bursting into song and dance down your local high street? they ask. It is probably not surprising then that some of the most suc cessful examples of the genre are those where the songs are so much part of the action that they move the story forward. ...

... Boys show us our true nature Stratford-upon-Avon Lord of the Flies Nigel Williams' skilful adaptation of William Golding's novel at The Other Place retains the thematic force of the book while paring away all but the most essential events. These form a tense buildup (assisted by Nona Sekacz's atmospheric 'sound score') and climax to each of three acts. In astonishingly strong perfor mances ...

... A Midsummer Night's Dream Plymouth Eastern interpretation embraces Western culture in the Ninagawa Company's dazzling production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Japan's renowned theatre director Yukio Ninagawa was at the Pavilions a venue normally more associated with rock con certs on the first of two exclu sive British dates at the start of an international tour. Played out in a giant 'sand ...

... South Pacific Aberystwyth Rodgers and Hammerstein's popular musical South Pacific maintains the Arts Centre's splendid tradition, and in leading lady Sarah Branston, who plays Ensign Nellie Forbush, the show has a vibrant personality. She brings vigour to the role in a number of entertaining, lively scenes, but is suitably dramatic when the script demands. Branston revelled in her first ...

... Laura Bagnor Michael Heath's full-blooded musical drama, having its premiere production at the Watermill, is set in thirties German-occupied Vienna and confronts its showgirl heroine with the stark choice of protecting her lover and mentor, or betraying a young Jew. But it fleshes out what could have been an abstract moral dilemma and even its Gestapo 'heavy' Strachan is a man with civilised ...