... Notre Dame OXFORD NOTRE Dame, a new musical, or rather musical thriller, was premiered in workshop form at the Old Fire Station Studio Theatre, Oxford and a veritable Tosca of musicals it turned out to be. Gone are the cats, the trains, the chess-board and the phantom; here we have torture, a flogging, a hanging and a presumed suicide, all well inside two hours. Based on the novel by Victor ...

... The Cinnamon Veil Cochrane Presented with the chance to blend the rampages of proto-colonialism with Oriental fables, Sara Clifford has woven together an intriguing array of elements in this play, produced by Theatre Melange. Her ingenious allegory pits Vasco da Gama (Eliot Giuralarocca) against Sinbad the Sailor (Abi Gouhad) in a race around the Indian Ocean to be first to discover the ...

... Harrv and Me Croydon TV land fast, brash, self- absorbed and oblivious to reality. Ray Goodenough, the producer of The Harry Harrod Show, is the epitome of the programme he is so desperate to save. The critics hate the show, guests hate the show and even the production team hates the show. Ray (Ian Saville) will not be beaten. In a frenetic opening of bad tempers, profanity and spot on ...

... Hopeless Games Belfast Festival The vibrant dance-pictures created by the five dancers of the Russo-Geiman company Do/Fabrik are one minute lyrical, fluid, joyous and life-enhancing, the next violent, grotesque, jagged and macabre. I his was the Tirst time that the collaboration between Potsdam's Fabrik Theatre and the Do-Theatre from St Petersburg had come to Northern Ireland, but the ...

... Waiting for Godot Colchester A curved grey screen snakes its way at mid-height across the back wall of the Mercury stage, creating a false horizon on to which can be projected a moon and clouds. Trie bare minimalism of the set emphasises this stage's already echoing acoustic and heightens the significance or any thing on it a child's red scooter, Lucky's hat, all four bodies flat out. ...

... Accomplices Sheffield Can people still stand up for what they believe to be right or should they hide behind their net curtains and hope that the horrors on the street never invade their living room. Doreen the outstanding Anna Keaveney giving a powerful and moving performance tried to do the former and has paid for it ever since with her home constantly attacked and her family assaulted. ...

... The Lodger Lancaster Jack the Ripper's victims numbered far fewer than seen in the opening few minutes of most modem slasher movies five in total, slaughtered over a period of less than four months in 1888. Yet more than a century later he remains the most chronicled of senal killers in history. Marie Belloc Lowndes' best- selling 1913 novel on the subject inspired a Hitchcock movie but is ...

... Magic Box BATTERSEA ARTS CENTRE THIS apparently aimless and artless short dialogue, written by Bertie, who plays the role of a cross-drcsser Claire, has something of the charm of an early hand-held camera surrealist short movie. Claire admonishes himself for neglecting to paint his fingernails and opens up a box, on a tablctop, which contains the head of his chum and confidante Thud (Helen ...

... Moliere NOTTINGHAM WITH the twin benefits of a synopsis and a very direct style of acting, this all-Russian play is surprisingly easy to follow, especially in the more active first part. In parallel with difficulties in his own time (and since) in Russia, Mikhail Bulgakov's play covers Moliere's last ten years. when his struggle with Church and State to pro duce his satire Tartuffe, ...

... Ambition pays off in Hoffman's masterpiece ROH Tales Of Hoffman OFFENBACH'S 1860 masterpiece--his biggest and most ambitious stage work--follows previous work based upon Hoffman's stories. Here the protagonist is the self-deluding lovestruck poet, unable to distinguish between the real and the fantastic. sung here by Alfredo Kraus making his debut in the role the singer, who ought to be ...

... Doctor Faust us Hammersmith THE COMMONWEALTH Theatre Company--in effect Artistic Directors Max Hafler and Tony Hegarty--have gone out on a limb with Marlowe's play by shearing it to the bare essentials so that the poetry comes across loud and clear without being obscured by any irrelevancies of production. Max Hafler plays the title role and looks younger than the often border- ing-on-middle ...

... As You Like It Greenwich AS WELL as this revival, As You Like It can be seen this year at Regent's Park as well as at Stratford-on-Avon so it looks very much as though it is one of 1992's set books. Greenwich's production was one of the first in the field and seemed on paper to have a lot going for it the director, James Robert Carson, is a former Scottish Arts Council trainee who has worked ...