... An exceptional array of talent Criterion Mountview West End Showcase Part two of this showcase, which featured some more excellent all-round performances by the postgraduate students from Mountview's acting and music theatre course, began with an extract from a play which turns up frequently in showcases these days Louis Mellis and David Scinto's Quentin Tarantino-styled Gangster No 1. Ben ...

... Bejart Ballet- Programme One Sadler's Wells Critics often complain that dance is all the same. Visit New York or Paris, and the same ballets are performed in pretty much the same way. But they need not worry. If the distinctive style of Maurice Bejart is anything to go by, national differences are alive and well and living in Lausanne. This 70-something choreo grapher has a reputation as a ...

... Tosca Royal Opera House With 15 performances spread throughout the season, Tosca heads the popularity stakes in the Royal Opera's 2000/01 schedule. The production's second cast is not quite as starry as the first, and less satisfying as a whole. The principals go through the motions under Jeremy Sutcliffe's direction, but at a deeper level there is a lack of contact between Maria Guleghina's ...

... Criterion Mountview West End Showcase This immensely enjoyable showcase, featuring postgraduate students from Mountview's intensive four-term performance course, was thoughtfully divided into four sections-two each from the acting and musical theatre options. First up was the full acting company, who before displaying a wide range of comedic and dramatic skills strutted their stuff with a ...

... Talent on show is no illusion Eastbourne British Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians Convention When 1,200 wand wielders gathered from around the world for five days of action packed magic at the Winter Gardens and Congress Theatre there had to be something for everyone. But it was the close-up kind, currently so ooDular at corporate functions, that produced some of the most eye ...

... Razzle Dazzle Hackney Empire Many stars and cast members from West End shows, together with well-known faces from television soaps and the Mayors from all the London boroughs, turned out in force for this Aspects of Dance Productions gala concert given in aid of the Hackney Empire Appeal. Appeal chairman Griff Rhys Jones took time out from selling T-shirts in the auditorium in order to crack a ...

... The Good Old Days Leeds As we rush headlong into a new century it becomes even more important to cherish our traditions. Audiences arriving at the City Varieties still dress the part, even though the show has not been on television for such a long time. I he first of the seasons performances had two returning favourites in opera singer Kay Jordan and juggler/comedian Richard Gauntlet! They ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...