... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...