... Hot revival with plenty of sass Adelphi Chicago Kander and Ebb's musical is a classic example of never giving up a show for lost. Back in the seventies it had a not particularly exciting production at the Cambridge, which started life at the Sheffield Crucible, with representational settings. Walter Bobbie, however, saw it in a new light for Broadway, staging it as a concert-cum-vaude- ville, ...

... The Popular Mechanicals Arts The Popular Mechanicals is a theatrical joke based on the Mechanicals play in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Having seen the Dream many times, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe amuses me less and less, though it is a neat idea to delve into how Bottom, Quince and Co put the thing on in the first place, competing, apparently, against other groups anxious to entertain the ...

... The Neighbours Orange Tree A noticeably smaller audience turned out for the press night of this second Michel Vinaver offering in the French theatre season. Perhaps the usually loyal Richmond playgoers were put off by the overiong, overloaded Overboard which preceded it. But Les voisins or The Neighbours, a poker-faced comedy, has a cast of only four and runs just 90 min utes without an ...

... Dear Brutus King's Head Sixty years after his death, the National has finally got around to JM Barrie with a Christmas staging of his Peter Pan. But the more enterprising King's Head (whom God and the London Arts Board preserve) is marking the occasion with a revival of this neglected treasure, a satirical fantasy not seen in London since Gielgud's 1941 production. On Midsummer Night, a ...

... Gender play holds back Leeds Jar the Floor Four generations of Afro-American women gather together for great grandma's 90th birthday. They are women without men, women trapped by the guilt and bitterness that comes with being a mother or a daughter. Cheryl L West's play, given its European premiere at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, looks capable of mining a rich seam of emotion but never goes ...

... The Weavers Dundee In recent years, Dundee Rep's reputation for quality community drama, which links in with the city's industrial and social history, has certainly soared. The Rep's Community Company, which is on stage with profession als, comes across as a sharply focused, well disciplined group whose commitment and sincerity is an example of how theatrical involvement can find vibrant ...

... Sending up the lovelorn Guildhall School of Music & Drama La FedeKa Premiata Haydn's opera La Fedelta Premiata (Fidelity Rewarded) is a pastoral 'dramma giocoso' composed to inaugurate the opening, in 1781, of the enlarged Esterhazy opera house. The composer uses an exist ing libretto by Gianbattista Lorenzi, pruned of its Neapolitan dialect and racy jokes, which sets the misunderstandings of ...

... Norma Edinburgh Another Edinburgh night and once again Scottish Opera produces an appealing version of a minor classic. Set 1,000 moons ago, during the Roman occupation of Gaul, Bellini's Norma may not be instantly recognisable but there are sublime moments during the two lengthy acts. Although a shade over- mechanical in the scene changes, John Gunter's pillared, brooding sets are an ...

... Tango Pasion Birmingham/Touring Arriving at the Hippodrome for a week, Mel Howard's production brings a whiff of a more vibrantly coloured world than our own albeit a fantasy world, conjured up by the rhythms of the tango where all women are desirable, and ardently desired by some, urbane men who endlessly pay them court and (quite literally) sweep them off their feet. Within the limited ...

... The Millenarium Nottingham/Touring Wayne McGregor, well into the tour of his relaunched Random Dance Company at Nottingham, seamlessly rejigged the programme around the absence of the injured Lai la Diallo. He led his remaining dancers, Catherine Bennett, Claire Cunningham Odette Hughes, Ben Maher, Jake McLellan and Ronuala Power into a world which mixed real with virtual reality in a ...

... Fresh faces in diverse line-up Hayling Island Ultimate Entertainments International Ultimate Entertainments usually finds some new and interesting acts for its showcases and this was no exception. Apart from a couple of stalwarts, there was a wide ranee of acts on view. There are quite a few solo harp acts around, but I have never seen a harp/keyboard duo before. Sharp Harmony is an ...

... The Killing of Sister George Eye, Suffolk Do members of the great British public really send flowers to dead fictitious characters? According to mythology, Grace Archer received posthumous bouquets. In Frank Marcus' The Killing of Sister George the actress play ing a lovable district nurse in a radio serial assumes many of her character's traits and is aghast to learn that her days in the show ...