... RP Entertainments Agency Showcase Essex RP Entertainments was determined to make its first showcase a success and therefore went to great lengths to secure an interesting line-up of 12 acts, three interval/foyer entertainers and the services of Tufty Gordon, one of the very best comperes in Britain, to hold the whole evening together. Appearing on stage in checkerboard mini-dresses, I was ...

... Sharp remedy of a dense text Birmingham/London The Alchemist This co-production between Birmingham Rep and the National Theatre, directed by Bill Alexander, presents Jonson's dense and difficult text with wonderful clarity and sharpness of detail. Very occasionally, Alexander has substituted a modem word to point up a joke (harem instead of seraglio, magnet for lodestone, for example), but it ...

... Skylight Belfast Skylight by David Hare concerns the severance of a passionate relationship, not from decline of attraction on either side or even the discovery of it by the man's dying wife, but by different perceptions of success. I ne COnnlCl is insuiuuie. itu romantic tragedy is even tangen- tially offered as a solution, but 'tea and sympathy' is offered at the end when, after the parting ...

... Private Lives Newcastle-under-Lyme Currently the only professional theatre in North Staffs is a heavy challenge to meet, but the New Victoria proves it is equal to the task by boldly beginning its new season with Private Lives. Director Chris Martin brings a new slant to this brittle comedy, its main strength being in the ele vation of Act II almost to the heights of the brilliant Act I. A ...

... Tilting Ground Swanage Mowlem Theatre's beachside location was not inappropriate to the launch of this world premiere production from Spyway Projects with lci d'Art. Guy Hibbert's psychological drama is set on a house patio by the shore and Annette Sumption's splendid design assured that we were believably transferred to the somewhat more exotic location of the Pacific coast of Mexico. The ...

... La Boheme Royal Opera House This sparkling revival of Puccini's La Boheme opens the 1996-97 season. The production is 22 years old and, truth to tell, Julia Trevelyan Oman's settings are beginning to show their age--I've always found them rather grey--but the staging leaps into life. John Copley, the original director, has returned not merely to spruce it up but to reinvigorate it from within. ...

... Meaningless mosaic Coliseum La Traviata Jonathan Miller famously deplored opera directors who wheel on artists to stand and deliver. However, it is rather an apt summary of his La Traviata, which launches ENO's 1996-97 season, though they also sit, even lie abed, and deliver. He recently nounced that opera is meant to be seen, something invertebrate parasites (that's critics and reviewers ...

... Great thoughts for today Manchester The Life of Galileo David Hare's translation of Bertoft Brecht's powerful play receives its first showing outside London at the Library and it proves to be the perfect venue. This is largely due to Michael Pavelka's bare, black stage, dominated by two gigantic elliptical discs mirroring the universe, which are stunningly lit by Nick Beadle. Between the ...

... Ferry Cross the Mersey Liverpool A group of skinny skiffle boys opens the world premiere of this musical Ferry Cross the Mersey at the Playhouse with Putting on the Style. With one bound Gerry Marsden, as himself, leaps on stage with It's Gonna Be All Right. And it was. This retro look at the sixties, written by Maggie Norris and Guy Picot, begins when Marsden stopped delivering fish and gath ...

... Dial M for Murder Norwich/Touring As the 1,000-plus audience at the Theatre Royal held its collective breath at key moments the silence was palpable. It was a remarkable testimony to the tension Frederick Knott's 1952 thriller can still generate-despite the many subsequent screen versions including, of course, Hitchcock's. It is a classic three act well- made play and, like all such pieces, ...

... The Fall of the House of Usherettes Plymouth/Touring Forkbeard Fantasy is celebrating the 100th year of cinema with a bizarre spoof which involves all the elements of movie going in the heydays of the thirties. There is technical wizardry and amazing stagecraft at the Drum. The effect is entirely surreal and visual. Surrealism is the stuff of dreams and The Fall of the House of Usherettes ...

... Ben Hur Croydon Having seen A Night at the Revolution, one of Performance Theatre Company's last productions at the Warehouse, I should have known Ben Hur was not going to be an ordinary evening's theatre. With memories of this experi ence still in the back of my mind, the show's strong element of audience participation came as less of a surprise. One minute you could be a galley slave, imag ...