... Charley's Aunt Norwich Nobody could level the charge of subtlety against this Playhouse revival of Brandon Thomas' famous farce. Indeed, director Paul Jepson would have done well to read his own production's programme note about plausibil-ity. The pratfalls and heavy-footed chases through which he puts his cast elicited some stony silences from the first-night audience. Thankfully, ...

... Creditable duo dispels doubts Royal Opera House Swan Lake Having seriously overdosed on Tchaikovsky and The Nutcracker during the festive season, the prospect of Swan Lake did not exactly have me whooping with delight. Furthermore, Anthony Dowell's production for the Royal Ballet, which suffers from roianoa sonnaoena s over- design, and some fairly chronic effects such as when the pro ...

... Cinderella Peacock There is a magical moment when Cinderella turns up at the ball and the bustle in the ballroom ceases as the assembled company turns to gaze on her. That moment parallells the arrival of City of London Ballet, for the company has risen out of the ashes of (the insolvent) London City Ballet. Somehow, director Harold King has waved a magic wand to get everyone to the ball. The ...

... Flesh BAC Studio There is an infectious buzz which runs throughout this frenetic and highly charged nineties romp. Frantic Assembly has brought club music into the BAC Studio, mixing the urgency of house beats with intimate sexual confessions which are also acted out in mime and dance forms. That the two go so well is largely because of Spencer Hazel's script. His slippery, quick- fire ...

... The Sash (My Father Wore) Finborough Orange marching songs fill this boisterous comedy about prejudice, which shows a devout Glasgow Protestant in head-on collision with his Irish Catholic neighbour on the day of the annual Orange Walk. The production is raucous and often ous, but Hector MacMillan's play is frustrating, too its quiet, more moderate characters seem impotent in face of the ...

... Les Cousins London International Mime Festival Purcell Room I thought: Mime--that means they won't speak. But with Les Cousins I could not have been more wrong. This personable French trio, Philippe Etienne, Christophe Philippe and Laurent Serre, started by lobbing a huge balloon at the children in the out audience and shouting at them to wake up. What ensued thereafter was a mad romp ...

... Sketches by Boz Wimbledon Studio Fair Play's New Year re-staging of six scenes from Charles Dickens' earliest work, gritty impressions of every day life and every day people, is no slice of Yuletide humbug. It was first seen two Christmases ago in the candlelit conviviality of the BAC arts cafe but, transferred for a brief season to the gloomy chill of the Wimbledon Studio, this revival ...

... Pitchfork Disney Bolton This is an exciting year for the Octagon as it begins spending its £1.6 million Lottery win in preparation for its 30th anniversary season in the autumn. The new season opens with this powerful and deeply disturb ing play by Philip Ridley about chocaholic twins whose clois tered lives are disrupted by a strange encounter. It is a bleak work which has a certain cult ...

... Coppelia Royal Festival Hall With the young Spanish dancer, Marta Barahona, indisposed due to a stress fracture, the Italian, Monica Perego, stepped in to take over the ballerina role in Ronald Hynd's production of Coppelia--the last ballet to be presented on the Royal Festival Hall stage by English National Ballet. First and foremost, Perego is a very competent dancer, but she is not ...

... Lange sure to lure the crowd Theatre Royal, Haymarket A Streetcar Named Desire Peter Hall's revival of Tennessee Williams' most talked about play is only the third since Vivien Leigh introduced his fragile heroine to London a half century ago, and the first to star an American actress. Jessica Lange enjoyed mixed success as Blanche Du Bois on Broadway in 1992, but this has done nothing to ...

... Guards! Guards! Grace Theatre Some people like eating sprouts. I do not. I understand that they are good for you and nutritious, but I simply do not like them. It is the same with fantasy novels of the Dungeons and Dragons style fiction. These are terrifyingly ular but I simply do not get it. Therefore I am completely lost at sea reviewing Guards! Guards!, an adaptation of a book by Terry ...

... The Merry Wives of Windsor Stratford-upon-Avon That this is the most naturalistic, most domestic of Shakespeare's comedies is acknowledged in Ian Judge's production for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where Tim Goodchild's set gives us tall, brick and timbered houses with mullioned windows letting in a golden, summer light (lighting: Simon Tapping) neatly clipped, formal gardens and the ...