... Voice of Musical Theatre 2000 Cardiff Before a packed audience at the New Theatre, a 19-year-old from the Isle of Wight, Laura-Michelle Kelly, beat off the challenge of young professional singers from all over the world to become BBC Radio 2's first Voice of Musical Theatre. Kelly, currently starring in the West End production of Whistle Down the Wind, charmed audi ence and judges alike in ...

... Chaucer comes of age BY JOHN MARTLAND Last week marked the 600th anniversary of the death of poet Geoffrey Chaucer, and Radio 4 launched its contribution to the BBC's Chaucer Season with The Archive Hour: Tales from the Archive (R4, Saturday, October 21). Presented by Barrie Rutter, artistic director of the Northern Broadsides Theatre Company, it traced the special relationship between Chaucer ...

... Summer Cabaret Isle of Man This show at The Villa Marina is, understandably, proving popular. With its well drilled and directed cast, it is eminently suitable for the family room atmosphere at this popular venue. Gareth James is an ideal warm-up man and affable gagster, whose matey line in crowd approach makes the room sit up and take notice. James is a top drawer vocalist with a fresh ...

... Pride of the Clyde Glasgow Johnny Beattie seems to be an old friend of every member of this show's audience--and it is mutual. The crowd knows the jokes and the songs, but Beattie trusts them not to shout out the punchlines. From the traditional accor dion of Ian Muir to Russel Lane's fabulous Calum Kennedy pastiche, there is something for everyone. But, like Scotland itself, it has its ...

... Dennis Locorriere Brentwood/Touring Billed as 'The Voice of Dr Hook'-the band split up in 1985 after securing a string of hits in the seventies and early eighties-Dennis Locorriere has jus1 released his first solo album. An engaging performer, his humorous and informative anec dotes between numbers kept the crowd at the Leisure Centre enraptured. Opening with only his guitar to accompany him, ...

... Singing on a Star Hornchurch/Touring It was disconcerting to find musical instruments on the set of Don't Dress for Dinner, but Nick Dawson benefited from Leigh Mulpeter's effective lighting, enhancing his music's different moods. This fresh-faced, at times endearingly gauche 25-year-old is already something of a local hero. Classically trained and multi-talented, his track record includes ...

... The Coronation of Poppea London Coliseum ENO's second Italian offering is Monteverdi's penetrating exposition of love burgeoning between two monsters, the one devious, the other psychologically unstable. Never has music of such sen sual urgency and beauty been lavished upon the likes of Poppea and Nerone, whose cruelty chills the heart even as one melts to their ecstatic duet 'Pur ti miro'. ...

... Achtung Kabarett! New End Chanteuse Alexandra Valavelska has done her homework in creating an authentic aural slice of the volatile twenties. Subtitled Berlin and Paris of the Twenties, Criss Cross Production's show tells via song and narrative the tale of Lola, a precocious Jewish lass who escapes her small-town shtetl for the cabaret bars of the big city. A classic crop of songwriters ...

... The Cutting Edge Bridewell This was the first in a series of summer concerts which form part of the Bridewell's Sondheim Season. Sub-titled 'Music for a New Millennium', it was intended to reflect the excitement and range of current music theatre writing, and featured the music and lyrics of Jason Robert Brown (shows: Parade, Songs for a New World), Adam Guettel (Saturn Returns, Floyd ...

... Why Logan's Lauder Compiled By PETER HEPPLE Jimmy Logan takes time out from his 'churchstorming' to play Harry Lauder at Pitlochry Jimmy Logan has just returned from his first cruise ship engagement. It's a funny life. he said, which is just as well as that was the title of my show, which I performed in two parts. It is also the title of his autobiography, now available in paperback. ...

... Bark Dance Productions Clore Studio Upstairs, Royal Opera House Family and friends packed the venue for Jan De Schynkel's debut with the Artists' Development Initiative, the Opera House-funded programme that gives outside artists the chance to build new work and new audiences with the Opera House's considerable clout. The evening began with What You See or What You Get, a piece for five ...

... La Boheme Glyndebourne/Touring Glyndebourne Touring Opera launches its season with a new production by David McVicar of Puccini's classic of young people dealing with love, life and death in 19th century Paris. But McVicar's staging is of today and for today, with the setting transferred relatively pain lessly to London 2000. The Cafe Momus in Michael Vale's street wise designs might be in Old ...