... Earl Okin--His Royal Horniness Cafe Royal This delightful mixture of comedy and cabaret could so easily have turned into a onejoke show with singer/songwriter Earl Okin some what ironically pondering on what it is like being a sex symbol but the performers musical talents make the evening far more enjoyable than that. Okin is a bit of a veteran of the Fringe and it is not so difficult to see ...

... The Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award Grand Final 1999 Pleasance A capacity audience created the perfect atmosphere for this year's awards. The billed compere, Boothby Graffoe, was replaced by Chris Addison an inferior substitute, in my view. Addison has a lot of mildly- amusing material, but also a most irritating stage manner. He is one of those pedestrian 'Where are you from?' comperes, who ...

... 2,000 Years Down the Drain--From Jesus Christ to Jerry Springer Gilded Balloon II Self-confidence and talent are abun dant in the six performers from the United States who make up Boom Chicago. Although there is a suspicion of a raw-schoolteacher element in the improvisational team's interaction with the audience fixed smiles and slightly patronising that is fagotten once the lengthy skits ...

... TurboZone presents Cinderella The Quad Cinderella is a bright choice of material for this noisy company of DJs, acrobats, trapeze artists, stunt drivers, performance artists and pyrotechnics experts at University Old College Quad. As this is the theatre of spectacle, updat ing a staple of the panto circuit does not need any interpretive bag gage. Theatre, however, it most cer tainly is. ...

... Melodic and mirthful music Edinburgh International Festival: Edinburgh Festival Theatre An Evening of Operette One of the event's token nods to semi-popular culture, this programme of selections from 19th and 20th-century French operettas pleased the audience with its variety of melodic and comic songs. Perhaps deliberately foiling any expectations that the evening would be one waltz after ...

... The Three Sisters Lauriston Halls Chekhov's play is arguably one of the greatest ever written, and is certainly one that has captured and moved audiences in every produc tion I have ever seen. This version by Theatre Alba translated into a Scottish setting by David Purves sets the play some new challenges but Chekhov triumphs in the end. To the untrained ear, the Scottish dialect sounds like a ...

... Thank You for the Music Windsor Prior to a national tour, Thank You for the Music opened at the Theatre Royal to enormous audience acclaim. The show-- simply a concert of songs from the sev- enties--has the makings of achieving a cult following and is modern nostalgia at its best. The fast-paced music virtually ensures that the audiences will be dancing in the aisles and the cast recreate the ...

... The errors of evacuation Sixty years ago this week, the biggest mass-movement of people in British history took place. During the first three days of September 1939, nearly 1.5 million people--including 800,000 schoolchildren aged between five and 15 -- were transported from towns and cities in danger from enemy bombers to places of safety in the country. Veteran foreign correspon dent ...

... Country takes centre stage By JOHN MARTLAND BBC Radio 2 demonstrated its continued support for country music by providing extensive live coverage of the 33rd Country Music Association Awards in Nashville, Tennessee. In Wake Up to Wogan (Music Entertainment for R2, Wednesday temrjer zz), tne programme s ubiquitous host soaked up the local atmosphere and conducted interviews with the likes of ...

... Ed Byrne Paisley/Touring Is he or isn't he? As Ed Byrne tosses those trademark auburn locks from side to side and up and down, that is the question on the lips of the sell-out Arts Centre audience. Ed Byrne is many things. He is a very accomplished performer who hides his skill with an audi ence behind a range of goofy expressions and self-deprecating one-liners. He is very funny a stand-up ...

... Barbican Hall There is a buzz and energy about a great Broadway show that is difficult to describe, so it is a shame this concert, celebrating that very genre, should largely lack these essential ingredients. On the surface, the concept is simple enough invite a group of great performers direct from the New York stage to London and let them loose on a bunch of numbers from classic American ...

... Circus Ronaldo Watch This Space: National Theatre Square Circus Ronaldo--now a regular visitor to Britain--has been presenting two of its shows in this series of free open air events. It is obviously more suited to this informal setting than the confines of the Queen Elizabeth Hall stage where I saw it last. Brie a Barak more accu rately described as street theatre is 50 minutes of gentle ...