... Polished show fits the bill Poole John Mills Associates With the sell-out crowd already in convivial mood at the Woodlands Court cabaret room at Sandford Holiday Park, genial compere Simon Jason immediately had them responding to his amusing banter and thereafter maintained the pace of this programme with bnsk linking chat. In a glamorous black glitter dress, assured vocalist Maria Holliday ...

... The Steamie Edinburgh Tony Roper's well-loved play, set in a Glasgow washing house in 1957, is just the sort of antidote needed on a freezing winter evening. It has a feel good factor thicker than mince and the sort of robust script that allows the Scottish Actors Initiative to make the most of its cast. This production at the Netherbow, under the direction of Anna Newell, ambles along ...

... The Tempest Dublin Director Conall Morrison, composer Conor Linehan and choreographer David Bolger have previously brought us an adventurous production of Tarry Flynn, and the trio now move to Shakespeare at the Abbey Linehan and musician Ellen Cranitch, seated at one comer of the stage, offer accompaniment to Prospero's orchestrated actions, which include exacting revenge upon his brother ...

... Lyrical tale takes flight Royal Festival Hall Peter Pan What makes a great family ballet, one that will please the kids and keep them quiet for an hour or two? Well, a familiar story helps, with clear-cut goodies and baddies and a happy ending (no unrequited love, if you don't mind). There should be pantomime and play-acting, cheery music you can sing or at least hum along to, ice cream in the ...

... JUST CLOWNING AROUND on Picture: Tristram Kenton. Nickolas Grace in Dick Wittington, London's Musical at Sadler's Wells. Short of the magic touch Sadler's Wells Dick Whittington, London's Musical Pre-publicity for this Christmas entertainment suggested that it would reinvent the artform [pantomime] for the third millennium, but as its award-winning director and choreographer Gillian Lynne ...

... The Kissing-Dance Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House How appropriate that the National Youth Music Theatre has been selected to present the first full-scale production in this new space. Its staging of Howard Goodall and Charles Hart's musical, based on Oliver Goldsmith's genial 18th century comedy She Stoops to Conquer, has been widely acclaimed and is more polished and assured than ever. ...

... Barry Dye Showcase Copdock The County Hotel, fully decked out in starcloth for the occasion, played host to this annual showcase. It provided a reasonably accurate snapshot of light entertainment on the mainstream live circuit at the end of the century. Ken the Pretentious Juggler has grown enormously in confi dence. He has developed a much more endearing arrogance and the audience warmed to ...

... Drama in both story and song New End Weill and Lenya This is not just a collection of songs but an examination, superficial by necessity, of the relationship between the serious-minded, work-obsessed German Jewish composer and the Vienna-bom singer, nominally a Catholic, who was a prostitute by the time she was ten and whose stage career was foundering at the time she met the man she was to ...

... The Old Curiosity Shop Southwark Playhouse Capturing the magic of Charles Dickens' vividly-realised world on stage is difficult enough at the best of times, so condensing this weighty 600-page favourite into a two-hour show must have seemed the literary equivalent of conquering Everest. That adaptor Stephen Sharkey not only manages this feat, but also does it with some finesse, deserves ...

... Libera Me Edinburgh It was not the wisest decision to stage the Flying Splinter Group's new production during Edinburgh's Hogmanay street party in the dying moments of the last millennium--most revellers looked briefly and wandered past. But when the repeat performance packed out George Street on New Year's Day, the full glory of the piece showed that little else was wrong. Devised around a ...

... So moving inside this child's mind New Ambassadors Spoonface Steinberg It takes a very special kind of writer to get into the mind of a child who is autistic, Jewish and suffering from cancer but, as radio listeners know, Lee Hall managed it triumphantly in 1997. Though it worked so brilliantly on radio, thanks to Kathryn Hunter's wonderful performance it is even better in the theatre. She is ...

... Under Milk Wood Mold Dylan Thomas' play for voices is not easy to stage. The language forms the characters and if a director allows too much business he risks distraction from its richness. lerry Hanos production in Clwyd Theatr Cymru's Emlyn Williams Theatre does not fall into that trap. On occasion it is too busy, some of the miming is over fussy, but mostly it allows the words to build up ...