... Scene Unseen Leeds Classic south Asian Kathak retains its purity when Nahid Siddiqui dances. Her company uses the swirling movements, emphatic hand gestures and foot stamping of classic Kathak in a choreographic style with a contemporary vocabulary. Siddiqui's impressive touring show Scene Unseen, at the Riley Theatre, looks at the natural world. It shows the balance and beauty of fire, water, ...

... Of Oil And Water Sadler's Wells The title of Siobhan Davies' new piece provides a clue to its meaning. The phrase implies elements that do not mix, and the 70*ninute work is a hugely rewarding study of opposites. It begins with Davies' eight excellent dancers lying in a row across the stage, gently flexing in soft rhythmic arches. They gradu ally rise and begin a series of solos, duos and ...

... Pickups and Hiccups Soho Theatre Working in the Chicago tradition of improvisational comedy, Seth Meyers and Jill Benjamin of Boom Chicago offer a fast-moving if inevitably uneven hour. The opening sketch builds on the usual improv format, as they ask questions of various members of the audience and then create composite characters out of the answers for a scene of bar room chat-up. Some later ...

... Carmen Cardiff/Touring Welsh National Opera's revival yet again of its 1997 staging of Carmen proves that the popular appeal of the Bizet masterpiece remains as strong as ever, despite the break with most of the traditional trappings. No wild gipsy dancing, no endless parade of toreadors, no realistic Spanish scenery, no sexy cavortings in this Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser produc tion, as ...

... Solo show gets laughs rolling Riverside Studios Issey Ogata The comic monologue appears to have stepped off the nation's laughter merry-go-round, and so the fact that Japan's Issey Ogata has made it into something of an artform comes as a welcome reminder of what we are missing. Like a more accessible yet far crueller Rowan Atkinson, Ogata prowls through seven hideously familiar human ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...