... Peer Gynt The Young Vic How peculiarly appropriate that a play using an onion as a metaphor should be staged in the round, with the audience forming rings around the cast for John Barton's impressively intimate RSC revival. There have been more picturesque versions of this notoriously difficult piece, but here our imaginations take flight, prompted by a few exotic props. Louise Belson's ...

... The Tempest Richmond Shakespeare conceived this late play as a courtly masque with magical set-pieces. The addition of a powerful prerecorded soundtrack and vivid lighting effects makes it perfect for puppet presentation. Marionettists Gren and Juliet Middleton, whose snug Theatre Barge has been making a sum mer tour of Thames moorings, have again collaborated with veteran actor Kenneth ...

... Betrayal Scarborough Equal importance is attached to late night productions in the Studio Theatre as to major plays in the main auditorium at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. And it is a policy that is underlined in a brilliant presentation of Harold Pinter's black comedy. This is superb theatre, with a welkrafted script, and excellent direction by Alan Ayckboum who is handling a Pinter play for ...

... Time of My Life Colwyn Bay Alan Ayckboum's 1992 play can be seen as his tribute to J B Priestley's time plays. In it the family dinner at centre stage happens now while at side tables--scenes move forward into the future and backward into the past. The story being told, that of an apparently happy family disin tegrating, is both richly comic and highly dramatic, often at the same time. It ...

... Nelken Edinburgh International Festival Edinburgh Playhouse Pina Bausch once famously remarked that she was not so inter ested in how dancers move as what moves them. This production, first staged in 1982, fails to shed much light in that direction, but as simple entertainment has plenty to offer. Staged in a field of carnations, the performers offer us what is basi cally an avant-garde revue. ...

... Duet for One Greyfriars Kirkhouse Tom Kempinski's fascinating play Duet for One was first performed in 1980 at the Bush before transfer ring to the West End. It is a must for any theatregoer with an interest in superb acting. Lucy Smith plays Stephanie Abrahams, a concert violinist suffer ing from MS, while Peter Broad is Doctor Feldman, the psychiatrist who tries to help her come to terms ...

... Lulu Bedlam Theatre This version of Lulu, which doesn't owe a great deal to Wedekind, opened promisingly with a fronting of tawdry but flashy curtains and some quite nice production ideas. The atmosphere of decadent Berlin, of seedy dressing rooms, is estab lished with a cabaret number for transvestite and chorus. But the dancing is ragged, dia logue slow and far too tentative, with no ...

... In Silence and Tears Church Hill Theatre History is the bits that people were there to note down, according to this story of a musician who is try ing to find out whether her great uncle plagiarised her grandmother in his final composition. Mariela Stevenson has written and directed a complex piece of drama. However the cast was not quite proficient enough to fully explore the nuances of their ...

... Stealing Overseas House--C Venue Stealing is a play which thinks it is Reservoir Dogs when in fact the closest it comes is a privatised reservoir in the summer of 1995: it is empty, cracked, badly leaking and any profit from it has already been taken. The story concerns the after math of a bank robbery. Robert, Rebecca and Bobby have gathered before splitting the spoils, but Bobby is ...

... Young and beautiful Touring La Boheme Scottish Opera Go Round's Hydro Electric sponsored tour, which will take this splendid young group of singers to just about everywhere in Scotland served by the National Grid is guaranteed to charm and woo audiences with its zestful youthful drive, as much as by its all round vocal qualities. Physical jostling and horse play, particularly in the first ...

... Le Flesh Union Chapel, Islington What is certain about Emilyn Claid's work is that it will stir up debate, for she uses rt as a vehicle with which to explore gender convention, and preconceptions about sexual powers. She plays with trick photogra phy that dissolves man into woman and vice versa. She her self is the premier model, show ing how easily she can metamorphose between the float ing ...

... Ra Lilian Baylis Ra describes itself as a new dance theatre group which presents an exciting collision of image, abstract form, Butoh, tango and jazz in an evening of dance, film loops, live music and theatre. Impressive. In reality, alas, it did not live up to its claim. Butoh turned out to be a dancer, seated on a trapeze, slowly descending a knotted rope, and some agonis ingly slow ...