... SNAPS The 1996 Rose Bruford Memorial Trust Director's Award has been given to Nigel E Higginson from Manchester. He will work at the city's Royal Exchange, Northern Broadsides and Sheffield Crucible. Britain's only indepen dent design course will be holding its end of year exhibition at The Royal National Theatre studio next week. The Motley Theatre Design show will include scale models of ...

... YOU Won't Always Be On Top, first seen at the Royal. Stratford, some three years ago, arrived at Unity on August 12 wilh some songs by Barbara Chapman but with all the defects one noticed on the previous occasion. The chief fault is that Henry Chapman's work is not really a play at all. It is more akin to what the television people call a dramatised documentary, dealing as it does with what ...

... VALERY HOVENDENS current production of Macbeth at the Hovenden Theatre Club from Sunday to Friday of this week, prior to a special performance at the George Inn. Southwark, on Saturday afternoon, is virtually the same as that which gained acclaim during their Malta season last December. Inevitably there have had to be some cast changes, and this week sees Viera Shelley making her debut ...

... Cut and Come Again. I see that tho Ideal Co. advertises that it has cut down half a dozen of its past-issued five-reelers into smartly moving two-reelers, and claims thereby to have brilliantly improved them. This may well be so. I can recall that one of the lot now advertised as being so trreated Her Greatest Performance, with Kllen Terry in the cast, seemed to tne unduly spun out in its ...

... . PAINTED PICTURES (Fox, British). It is said that the Fox Film Company are going to make pictures in England. If that be so, we shall probably be freed from the quota stuff that it, together with other firms, has been putting out. Painted Pictures is a good example of the unintelligent sort of thing that goes out as British, and compares badly with even tho most ordinary American films ...

... . WANTED. (Producers Distributing- Company. All-Talking:.) Originality on the screen is in itself somewhat of a novelty. Unfortunately, immediately a producer or scenarist strikes a new idea it gives inspiration to his brethern who proceed to flood the world with what might at least be called colourable imitations of the original. Within the last few months we have seen this in the rush ...

... . FILMS SHOWING. Great Britain is not particularly well represented in tho Easter programmes, although a number of players who are popular here have their places on f screen Rookery Nook, the Tom Walls British and Dominions feature, which has already enjoyed a highly tui run at the New Gallery, has started a second at the Astoria. Stewart Romo and Frances Doblo are being seen in. Dark Red ...

... . THE HAPPY ENDING. (Gaumont-British.) A silent version of Ian Hay's story was made some years ago, the director being, so far as we remember. George Cooper, and the star Fay Compton. it was an exceedingly good film. As so often happens nowadays, the story in the new picture suffers somewhat from tho lure of apectacle and elaboration, it lias been directed by an American, Millard Webb, ...

... . THE SHOW OF SHOWS (Warner). The current attraction at the Tivoli is probably the biggest of the semi-revue pictures that have yet been screened in this country. The cast includes close on a hundred well-known film personalities in America, including some British players. These are supported by a battalion of picked Hollywood beauties. The whole is somewhat oyer- weighted. A complete ...

... ARTS COUNCIL TOURS OR REPS.? To the Editor of The Stack. Dear Sir, I have read with In terest your article on the work of the Arts Council. Many people up and down the countryside who came to take an active interest in the theatre through the old pfay- tour method feel that they have been let down by being cut off from their C.E.M.A. plays. Has not the trouble with our theatre always been ...

... Anglo-Indian 'Othello' rpHE Touchstone Thc.it re Com- pany, a group of amateurs with high ambitions, presented a production of Othello with Ranen Roy, an Indian actor, as the Moor at Unity, on August 30. Francis Butler's direction, especi ally on this small stage, was notable for its pace and breadth, although subtlety and a unifying style were lacking. Mr. Roy, tall and broad, looked an ...

... ROBERT HELPMANN'S picturesque and imaginative production, treating the work almost as ballet, remains the best thing about this revival. The elaboration and grace of the grouping, and the enchanting brilliance of colour place the right emphasis on LE COQ D OR Revival of the opera by Rimsky- Korsakov. Presented by the Covent Garden Opera Company at Covent Garden on February 10. Scenery and ...