... A Little Bit of French Cafe Royal Once there was a kind of intimate, personal music performed in supper clubs, smoky bars and other such surroundings, which spoke of transient love, loss and regret, broken hearts and spirits, or instead projected a devil may care insouciance cocking a snook at life. In her late-night show in a somewhat charmless room which belies the venue's name, Monique ...

... La Gioconda London Coliseum ENO's two concert performances of Ponchielli's Venetian melodrama gave the old war-horse a good canter while providing peachy parts for seven of Britain's finest singers. The convoluted plot tells how La Gioconda frustrates the villain Bamaba's attempts to possess her and enables the lovers, Enzo and Laura, to escape from the latter's vengeful husband, Alvise. Davy ...

... The Queen of Spades Cardiff/Touring Imaginative, innovative, determined to be controversial -- that is this new Welsh National Opera production. The suicidal Liza, rather than jumping into the river, asphyxi ates herself with a plastic bag. The Countess is frightened to death, literally, while taking a bath. Herman's nightmare occurs in a vertical bed from which a huge skeleton emerges to ...

... Angels and Exiles Clore Studio Upstairs: Royal Opera House This piece is presented as part of the Back Garden Project, brainchild of executive director Michael Kaiser, which provides non-Opera House artists with access to the fabulous new facilities, as well as giving Royal Ballet staffers the chance to flex their administrative muscles. The Royal Ballet-trained, independent ...

... LSI Wakefield In the spacious and comfortable surroundings of the Alverthorpe Club was an act that has become a firm favourite with northern clubland audiences over the past couple of years. LSI, which apparently stands for Love, Sex and Intelligence, is a two-boy, all-singing, all-dancing act based in Derby. The most obvious and striking aspect of their performance is the sheer quality of the ...

... Leader of the Pack Bromley The true-life tale of Elite Greenwich, one of the great songwriters and producers of the sixties, this musical is the story of the sound she helped to create. i-rom numrjie Degmnings Greenwich landed a job as a staff writer at New York's Brill Building, where she teamed up with Jeff Barry, whom she subsequently married, and collaborated with Phil Specter. A score ...

... Combination hits right note Nanci Griffith Royal Albert Hall Singer/songwriter Nanci Griffith and the London Symphony Orchestra made an intriguing and successful combination as the country star performed a varied concert including some of her best-known numbers. Conductor Andrew Pryce Jackman and Griffith worked together to transform guitartesed arrangements into the symphonic I songs recorded ...

... New life story is just the tonic Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House Mary Seacole The self-taught Jamaican Mary Seacole was a remarkable woman. Though skilled in the mixing of herbs to relieve and cure sickness, the War Office turned down her offer to nurse in the Crimea. She went nonetheless, earning the undying tude of the soldiery and achieving legendary status. Richard Chew's delightful ...

... La Rondine Leeds/Touring The revival of Francesca Zambello's staging of Puccini's late 'operetta' makes for a delightful evening at the Grand Theatre, the tale of a cultured courtesan's unsuccessful bid for true love with a younger man going with a real swing. Opera North plays the composer's final revision, in which an anonymous letter to Ruggero about Magda's past blights the idyll. Bruno ...

... Harry tickles his darker side Palace Harry Hill--Birdstrike 2000 Championed by his peers as the natural successor to comic luminaries as diverse as Harry Worth and the Goons, Harry Hill has a lot to live up to. Happily his latest show, a back-to-basics return to the dizzying, stream of consciousness up style he had honed before television claimed him, delivers in spades. Where his previous ...

... English Literature--the Musical British Library Shows, films and songs inspired by, or based on the work of, William Shakespeare and many other distinguished authors, were featured in this final event in the British Library's season of Chapter& Verse--1000 Years of English Literature. Nicholas Parsons introduced a programme which began with The Beggar's Opera Prologue and Overture, and blended ...

... Disney On Ice--Jungle Adventures London Arena/Touring Feld Entertainment has cracked the ice spectacular yet again--this time taking us to the vibrant lands of the jungle where we meet some of our favourite Disney characters. Robert Smith's realistic set and LeRoy Bennett's stunning lighting easily draw us into the dense woodland setting where the action never stops. Rafiki, the wise mandrill, ...