... Suite surrender in need of a new dawn King's Head Song at Twilight The King's Head is quick off the mark in Noel Coward's centenary year with a production of his last play, though it was first staged in London 30 years ago as part of a trilogy, Suite in Three Keys. This is in fact a version played in the States by Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, slightly cut down from the original and ...

... La Fille Mai Gardee Royal Festival Hall For many years The Nutcracker has been earmarked as the first ballet to take children to, but in effect, Ashton's La Rile Mai Gardee is much more child- friendly. For a start, it hijacks numer ous characters from English panto-mime which are instantly recognised by the younger gener ation. We have a Dame in the form of Widow Simone, a live pony, animal ...

... The Nutcracker Lyceum With an auditorium liberally decked with red plush and cherubs, the Lyceum also boasts a decent-size stage for ballet and quite why the Royal Opera House never grasped the opportunity to utilise this theatre as a temporary home during its rebuilding period remains a mystery. Birmingham Royal Ballet, however, has an altogether smarter administrative team, and took the ...

... Ferry Cross the Wayeney Ipswich In mid-winter, the touring company Eastern Angles cuts out the travelling and settles for being tucked up cosily in the Sir John Mills Theatre. This year they have the com pany of an excellent script by Ivan Cutting, which is a fab show from the sixties, and some inspired music by Pat Whymark which con jures up the feel and infectious- ness of Lennon and ...

... Ballet giants are cramped Royal Festival Hall Cinderella Watching the two stepsisters in Ashton's Cinderella struggle to raise so much as a sympathetic titter in Act I, I began to question whether the whole business of men dressing up as women on stage has become outmoded. But then I recalled the spontaneous laughter which had greeted Hackney Empire's panto Dame. And then too there are the ...

... An emotional rollercoaster Vaudeville The Memory of Water In her debut as a writer for the stage- this piece was first seen back in July 1996 at the Hampstead Theatre- Shelagh Stepnenson does not say anything particularly profound about bereavement, but that all seems rather unnecessary when her observation skills are so spot-on. Following their mother's death, three sisters congregate at ...

... Perfect Days Hampstead Theatre/ Touring Fifty years ago, it would have been impossible to write a comedy, let alone a romantic one, about a childless businesswoman whose biological clock is running down, her friend with a 2&-yearold son whom she has only just met, that same young man falling in love with the sparky but ageing heroine, and a gay man willing to become a father for the sake of ...

... The Tempest Barbican Theatre A year on from Stratford, Adrian Noble's ravishingly theatrical staging now resonates with millennial portents as David Calder's magisterial Prospero stills the house with the 'cloud-capped towers' speech, seeming to round off our own transitory pageant and finally embracing the audience in a poignant, actorly epilogue. The production reaches London with only a ...

... Ace of Clubs Wimbledon Studio Theatre Following almost a year's closure for refurbishment, the Studio has exploded back into life with a dazzling revival of Noel Coward's Ace of Clubs. The show was originally produced in the West End- with Coward himself directing- but closed after a short run in 1950. On the evidence of the pacy spectacle on offer here, it is hard to understand why. Ace of ...

... Morgiana's Dance Cardiff/Touring Armistice. The Great War to end all wars is finally over. A soldier returns to the land fit for heroes and unemployment. The trauma of the slaughter he has experienced on behalf of King and country makes his homecoming to wife and young daughter almost beyond his abil ity to cope. These bare plot bones of Chris Cooper's fine new play can not possibly convey the ...

... The Winter's Tale Stratford-upon-Avon Antony Sher's habit of dominating productions here makes for a mesmerising, memorable Leontes, focusing this Winter's Tale on his tragic failure to grow up, trust his wife and come to terms with the loss of a youthful past spent boyishly frolicking with best chum Polixenes. In one of director Gregory Doran's many effective touches, they begin wearing ...

... Krapp's Last Tape/ Breath Arts Legend has it that Beckett wrote the text of Breath on the back of a postcard and mailed it to Kenneth Tynan in New York as a contribution to Oh, Calcutta! Thirty-five seconds long on a stage strewn with garbage (like a touring production of Cats), the play is simply a sigh between a baby's first cry and the death rattle. This is the very essence of Beckett. ...