... New End The Bespoke Overcoat/ The Hebrew Lesson This double bill is a tribute to playwright and screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz, who died in 1998. Although their settings are very different, both plays dramatise the strong Jewish instinct for empathy and survival in hostile circumstances with wit, melancholy ana humanity. Directed with great subtelty by William Glynne and designed with an ...

... Noises Off Keswick This, the first full summer season in the new Theatre by the Lake, got off to an outstanding start with a superb production of Michael Frayn's hilarious comedy. As soon as the first night curtain went up, there was applause from a sell-out audi ence for the beautifully conceived set, which shows a living room and stairs going up to other areas in a house. It serves as the ...

... Alexandra's House Belfast An enchanting new opera for and featuring children is giving youngsters a highly positive introduction to the art form. Dublin's ever-inventive Opera Theatre Company has taken a story by young Russian writer Alexandra Faldina and made it into a timeless short won\ of memory and ever-repeating echoes. The tale won the 1996 Pushkin Prize a literary comp etition for ...

... The Music Programme Covent Garden Festival: Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House This festival has always been adventurous in its programming, which inevitably results in some clinkers, notably the present piece. Paul Micou has transformed his entertaining first novel, written in 1989, about an inspector assessing a UN-funded music programme in Africa into a libretto of terminal banality. ...

... Stunningly evocative Covent Garden Festival: The Grand Temple, Freemasons' Hall Israel in Egypt It may be coincidental, but flickering film projections more distracting than purposive have bedevilled all three shows I have reviewed at this year's festival. A large eye projected on a screen above The Sixteen pres umably represented the Almighty's all-seeing eye overlooking Moses' delivery of ...

... Carmen Cardiff/Touring This revival of the 1997 coproduction by the Welsh National and Scottish Operas, at the New Theatre, proves to be particularly welcome and satisfying. Not only has the staging become more integrated and the I chiaroscuro lighting more dramatic, but the sexual chemistry between the new principals is raised to a steam heat, where before there J had been too often mere ...

... Subtle display is Taylor made May Fair Rose Bruford: Showcase 2000 Fifty-nine students-- is this a kind of madness? Especially when 22 are also singing and playing instalments and many of the audition pieces feature women slagging off men which, however true to life, makes for monotony. Six songsters opened the show by considering whether Susan had found The Real Thing (by Richard Maltby and ...

... Melodrama's mature appeal Lyttelton/Touring The Heiress Presented on the South Bank as part of a national tour, Ruth and Augustus Goetz's stage version of Henry James' novel Washington Square is one for the older theatregoer, especially if they can recall Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft in the original West End production in the late forties. The nuances of James' book were largely ...

... Saving Grace Etcetera The first part of Duncan Sarkies' twc-hander appears to be in search of a theme: Gerald (David Jenkins), a kindly carpenter, invites antagonistic Grace to his home where they make furniture and discuss their views on death. Gerald then reveals that he is Jesus, and it would appear that beneath the calm exterior he has problems, or he is in fact the Messiah. Proof of the ...

... Mrs Steinberg and the Byker Boy Bush In Michael Wilcox's new comedy, Mrs Steinberg is an old-style socialist who runs a charity shop benefitting left-wing causes, like pencils for Cuba. When she leaves for a month, her staff, led by the ambitious young Matty (Paul Nicholls) completely overhaul the operation, moving it upmarket and on-line, and quadrupling the profits. Her principles ...

... The Fire Raisers Southwark Playhouse Arson, you might think, is no joking matter. But a singing, dancing chorus of firemen subverts from the outset this potentially sinister, allegorical tale of a successful businessman who welcomes into his household the agents of his own destruction. The result falls short of the deeply unsettlng, but works as enjoyable entertainment. Directed by John Carter ...

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