... forcibly in all four scenes as the exploiter of people's misfortunes. He earns a good living charging visitors entrance fees to speak with the inmates. Chris Myles gives a polished performance as the killer and also as a policeman bent (both meanings) on getting ...

... optimistic search for work. But forced to wave goodbye to her friends and animals, the heartbroken Matilda makes a vow never to speak again, which soon leads her into trouble with a tormenting bully (Danny Charles) at her new city school, and she runs away ...

... vocalist Duncan Harvey is an instinctive enter tainer who feels his audience's mood and just goes with the flow. Vocally speaking, this chirpy Mancunian is nothing out of the ordinary, but his renditions of Matt Monro's If I Never Sing Another Song and ...

... his English frequently unintelligible, particularly in his most passionate speeches. As Lady Macbeth, Mo Kipstine Hoeje also speaks in heavily accented English. Her odd stresses and pauses sometimes suggest that she learned her lines phonetically, with little ...

... Bevan are given comic short shrift. Sian Summer's direction firmly hits its target in the hilarious school scene with Welsh speaking forbidden. It is wonderfully played by the cast of five, with Dyfan Roberts' Jac in fine form as the teacher. The ensemble ...

... keeps the flow going, but a flatness in delivery gives the impression rather of a mere vehicle through which the characters speak and, almost unforgivably, his island accents verge on parody. Additionally, the stated link of the piece to other disaporas ...

... Alcibiades, while Richard McCabe (Apemantus) gives his accustomed perfor mance as a shoulder-shrugging cynic. Indifferent verse-speaking and 'acting' characterise other roles. The production entertains when it should excoriate. David Blewitt ...

... . Virtually immobile, and forced for self-protection to be dispassionate and subdued, the character just stands there and speaks softly, and Harvey is sometimes unintelligible even in the small space. Gerald Berkowitz ...

... rid herself of treachery while trying to protect the love of her life, the Earl of Essex. Given that one of the characters speaks an inspired gibberish which mixes a Stanley Unwin style of Esperanto with mad, modem Spoonerisms, one has to doff one's cap ...

... form comically expires, an editor opens his mouth to roar like a lion, a mad policeman wields a gun, and reverberating voices speak in bizarre chorus. Young Self, scribbling in the notebook hung permanently round his neck, rails against God and the world ...

... baby equipment. The relationship between Barbs and Sadie, her mother, is finely drawn. Judy Wilson's tightly- permed, plain-speaking Sadie, with her dire taste in hand-knitted jumpers and tacky Christmas gifts, is a delight. Childlike and artless, she is ...

... comedian Matt Lucas) adlibbing to the audience, strains to be as contemporary and relevant as possible. But making the Trojans speak with Irish accents and the Greeks with English accents invites confusing comparisons. The central love affair is over shadowed ...