... David Copperfield Greenwich I do not envy Greenwich's outgoing director Matthew Francis. Adapting Dickens' doorstop of a novel for the stage, with its numerous characters, settings and plot turns, is enough to send anyone doolally. For someone who has struggled at the same time against a potential London Arts Board cut which threatens the existence of his theatre, it must have been torture. ...

... Leonce and Lena Gate Rounding off a season of plays by Georg Buchner at the Gate was a musical adaptation of Leonce and Lena, the only comedy by this 19th Century German dramatist-written when he was just 22 years old. Not onginally written as a musical, the addition of songs is both a spectacular triumph and a tedious failure. I would watch the play all over again just to see Christopher ...

... Excitement from the start Stratford-upon-Avon The Merchant of Venice Robert Jones' set design makes this production look exciting from the moment you enter the theatre. Vapours from Venice's canals seep up through gratings in the street, while a shimmering blue and gold haze in the distance beckons you away from the stinking humidity of the city. Director Greg Doran builds on this at the ...

... Finding many melodic levels Shaftesbury Paul Bunyan When Benjamin Britten's first stage work was seen at Sadler's Wells more than 20 years ago, it was, I recall, regarded as something of a curiosity. In the Royal Opera's production, by Francesca Zambello, we can see it as a fascinating piece of work on several levels. For one thing it seems to be a progenitor of the Broadway musical of the ...

... High energy Jamm are tops Blackpool Henderson Management 1997 Band Showcase Of the two dozen acts featured in this showcase, staged by Cleveleys-based John Henderson Management in the Blackpool Tower Ballroom and Tower Lounge, about half were either tribute bands to a particular act or at least a eenre or era. Hottest of the one-for-one outfits were the Jamm and Reetwood Bac. Three-piece Jamm ...

... The Chirpaun Dublin Tom Mclntyre, in Good Evening Mr Collins, brought a multi-layered view of the big man to the stage. In his latest play, at the Peacock, he attempts to depict a contemporary Ireland, the very fabric of which is intricately interwoven with the mythic and tale elements of its Celtic past. The Chirpaun of the title is the child that Jacinta Concannon is carrying. The ...

... The Whisper of Angels' Wings Birmingham Nick Stafford's new play, set in rural Staffordshire in the last months before the outbreak of the First World War, cogently presents the painfulness of change. In a tense, riveting drama director Gwenda Hughes and her cast at the Rep Studio holds that tension very well we watch two poor farming families erupt into bitter antagonisms, as the focus of ...

... The Jewish Wife/ The Jewish Daughter New End Lime Tree's double bill opens with a poignant scene from Brecht's Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. The year is 1937 and Judith, Jewish wife of a compromised German doctor, is packing to leave Frankfurt for exile in Amsterdam, despite her oana s protests. At the time, nei ther Brecht nor his characters could know of the horrors to come, which ...

... Stranger's House Royal Court Upstairs This third and final production in the Royal Court's showcase of new European writing is headlined New German Voices. But although Dea Loher is a much- lauded Bavarian dramatist, all but one of the voices in her gloomy play are ex-pat Macedonians, and she gives them no sense of loca tion or national identity. Hristo (Christopher Ettridge) claims he a ...

... Rusalka Wexford Alexander Dargomizhsky's Rusalka holds its place in the Russian repertory on account of its skilful fusion of folk song and 19th Century operatic idiom. It dates from 1856 but looks back to the music of Glinka. The story is that of a miller's daughter, wooed and abandoned by a prince, she throws herself into the river, becomes a water- sprite and takes revenge on her faithless ...

... Merce Cunningham Company Belfast There could be few more appropriate settings for Merce Cunningham's majestic Ocean than inside the watery, riverside world that is Belfast's new Waterfront Hall. This airy, glass- walled dome well and truly came of age with the arrival of Cunningham's final collaboration with his long-time associate, com poser John Cage its only European performance this ...

... Orpheus Hayes With the current fashion for reinventing classical ballets and giving them a revolutionary twist, it was refreshing to view a new ballet with its traditional storyline intact. Divided into three scenes, Jan Kitteridge's Orpheus for the Adonais Ballet Company, at the Beck Theatre, provides challeng ing roles for the group's likeable dancers, and is set to a potpourri of music by ...