... . BY IVAN PATRICK GORE. Things appear to get blacker every day for the many so-called night-clubs that have flourished so long in the West End under different names and a variety of alien exploiters Unfortunately not a few of the reputable ones are getting a publicity they do not desire, and are finding that, although the majority of the mud falls short, just a little of it sticks here and ...

... . By IVAN PATRICK GORE. HUNGARIA RIVER CLUB. Very soon now the club that once was Murray's River will be calling its members and their friends to the gardens and verandahs close to Maidenhead Bridgo. The new establishment might be said to have been born with a silver spoon in its mouth, for, like its brother the Regent Street restaurant, it has the direct backing and support of tho ...

... . BY IVAN PATRICK GORE. CHARITY . At a recent charity cabaret patrons bought cushions on which to sit on the floor and watch the show with some degree of comfort. If you bought two cushions you had a better view, but were not popular with those behind you who had only been ablo to afford one This cushion idea is by no means new, although it may be a novel aid to raising the wind. Floors, ...

... . By IVAN PATRICK GORE THE TRAFALGAR. Once upon a time the Trafalgai Restaurant was the grill-room, or porhaps tho billiard-room, of the Grand Hotel. To-day, under the management of B. Vercelli and his two brothers, it is one of the most popular first-class restaurants in the West End. Within a few B weeks, however, it will change its D name to Ohantilly, thereby relin- t quishing the right ...

... Totally Foxed HORNCHURCH AS MADCAP farces go, Justin Greene and Steve Cooke's Totally Foxed-- currently appearing at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch-- has all the zany ingredients of a quick-fire comedy: dubious characters, an improbable plot and even a case of mistaken identity. Where it succeeds is in its use ot new technology as the focus of the story line. The Corman Corporation are ...

... Cabaret CHESTER FOR HIS first Autumn Season at Chester Gateway, artistic director Peter Rowe pulls no punches with his splendid, bold production of the hit musical Cabaret, the book by Joe Masteroff based on the play I Am A Camera. Running in repertoire, from October 5 to 27. with C P Taylor's Good, the two productions sharing the same background of nightmare of the German Hurd Reich in ...

... Pack of Lies COVENTRY HUGH Whitmore's play offers a riveting evening's theatre in this production by John Durnin for the Belgrade. The atmosphere of quiet, suburban living is established immediately, helped by the authenticity of Adrian Rees' set: the ground floor of tmodest, outer-London house, its stained-glass window-lights casting patches of faint colour on the neutral cream walls, its ...

... Up n' Under SWANSEA JOHN GODBER sets this Seven-a- Side, Amateur Rugby League play in Castleford, a town somewhere in England. The first half of the play is set mainly in the Dressing Room of the Wheatsheaf Arms team a reluctant- to-train bunch who expend more energy in lifting their albows than in physical training. A rash, expensive wager to defeat the Cobblers results in a do-or-die ...

... Spokesong I BELFAST THE LYRIC Players Theatre, Belfast is paying tribute to the late Belfast born playwright Stewart Parker by reviving his first stage play, Spokesong. Written in the early seventies at the beginning of the present continuing violence and tensions, it is to a degree both nostalgic and prophetic. Jokey and verging on the ironic in tone, it has much of the flavour of the Parker ...

... The Pirates of Penzance CANTERBURY THE PIRATES of Penzance may be 1 10 years old but there are certainly no cobwebs on Malcolm Knight's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera. This is the version that was pre sented on Broadway, to much acclaim, by the New York Shakespeare Festiv al. Directed and choreographed by Jack Gunn it filled the Marlowe, Canterbury, with rumbustious joy. Mike ...

... Vanessa SWANSEA IN VIEW of recent controversy regarding the use of Welsh-language actors and actresses, it seems appropriate that Vanessa, which toured earlier in the winter in Welsh, has been requested of the same company in English. Theatr Gorllewin Morgannwag (West Glamorgan Theatre) scored a I huge success with its production ot Vanessa drws Nesa and the company has been rightly described ...

... Richard III HULL PRODUCING Shakespeare on a shoestring throws up a host of practical challenges which often end up dominating the style of the piece. Such is the case with Great Eastern Stage's Richard III, which differs from others largely by virtue of having a cast of just six, all of whom are men. The switching of roles does tend to make one nobleman very much like another and few real ...