... Mystique Blackpool This latest edition of the Pleasure Beach Horseshoe Showbar annual extravaganza of magic, music, movement and mirth contains few actual surprises but then, as one of the few shows to buck last season's box office downturn, surprises are perhaps not what the Mystique audiences come to see. Put another way, if you could not work out how Richard de Vere pulled off his large ...

... Readers' Poll Awards Show Wakefield Readers of the Wakefield and District Review had been invited to nominate their Best Acts of 1998, placed in five categories. Westgate Common WMC hosted the resulting Reader's Poll Awards Show, a sell out, and it proved to be a very lively night indeed. Producer and host was The Stage's own Mark Ritchie, clear and informative, no mean vocalist in his own ...

... An Evening with Nigel Planer Swindon Twenty years on from his pioneering late-night work at the Comedy Store in London's Soho, Nigel Planer has moved his stand-up routine in an entirely new direction. as wen as oeing a iv actor and comedian, he is now an accomplished and challenging poet to date largely unpublished and a novelist with one showbiz novel, The Right Man, in print. It was these ...

... Rick Wakeman-Half a Century Shanklin, Isle of Wight Rick Wakeman recently celebrated his 50th birthday, and within three days of the party was premiering his brand new show, Half a Century. St Saviour's on the Cliff was the perfect venue in more ways than one. Now a born-again Christian, Wakeman performed many of his musical highlights in a quite remarkable show. To help celebrate, he brought ...

... A skim through famous hits Glasgow/Touring Kenny Rogers Standing with the light bouncing off that famous white goatee, Kenny Rogers is very tanned and trim for a living legend. But this old trouper gave the up-for-it Royal Concert Hall audience precious little incentive to get up and groove which is a terrible shame given the quality of his songs. Maybe it was the perfunctory way Rogers and ...

... Roger McGuinn Burgess Hill I like folk songs, 'cause they tell stories, smiled Chicago-bom Roger McGuinn, whose tour is named Voice of the Byrds. Maybe that should read Voice of the Wyrds because-like so many of his sixties contemporaries-his songwriting talent is emphasised through the lyrics over the importance of the music. With pleasing anecdotes detailing lyric-swaps between him self ...

... Dervish Forum This, surely, is a fairly definitive example of a band living up to its name. Sligo-based Dervish plays with a stunning verve and energy, presenting Irish music at its most exciting: driving rhythms, lilting melodies and dynamic arrangements are there in profusion. The level of musicianship in the six-piece band is outstanding ly good, and is demonstrated to equal effect in ...

... Karen Akers Pizza on the Park Even before Karen Akers begins to sing, there is an elegance about her demeanour that is quite distracting. Despite her height-she is almost 6ft tall- the singer still cuts a graceful figure, and with her striking cheekbones and short bobbed stylish haircut, many a model would simply kill for her look. But what has probably made this US concert and cabaret star ...

... Our Kind of Musicals Grimsby In aid of the When You Wish Upon a Star children's charity, more than two hours of show-stoppers pleased a near capacity Auditorium crowd and proved that local lad Gary Williams' star is still in the ascendancy. Hosting the show was the magnificent David Jacobs, whose self-deprecating anecdotes had everyone chuckling. While one could listen to Jacobs all night, his ...

... Fresh and fizzy presentation Huddersfield The Barries Merseyside-based duo The Barries appeared at the Oakes club, where their cabaret-based performance was well-received by a presentation night audience. Tony and Tricia Barrie are twin brother and sister. They are very young, and their blend of fresh and fizzy presentation, com bined with Tricia's distinctive singing voice which sounds mature ...

... Rich Hall: the Shame Spiral Edinburgh/Touring You have got to hand it to Rich Hall-here is a comic who really does his homework. Anyone who can come to Scotland and perform a pun-ridden song that manages to get both Preston-pans and Kirkcaldy in, and keep the scansior going has to be doing something right. In fact it was Hall's alter- ego, his uncle Otis 'You'd be surprised now many men are ...

... Side by Side by Jerome Kern Covent Garden Festival: Peacock Startling to find a concert celebrating the life and work of Jerome Kern that missed out on standards such as The Folks Who Live on the Hill, Dearly Beloved and even Long Ago and Far Away. But then this was a show calculated to search out the iar, especially from the early Broadway years. And no one could really complain if we got ...