... Carmen Cambridge/Touring Sex and violence, passion in an exotic setting and irresistible tunes make Bizet's opera a favourite with audiences. From the opening bars of the overture, taken at a cracking pace by conductor Paul McGrath, this is an exhilarating production. Staged at the Cambndge Arts Theatre, it is costumed by Chrissie Madison in the latest clubbing fashions, sung in English and, ...

... Light Almeida Theatre de Complicite's staging of Torgny Lindgren's novel is, as is its wont, company-created under the direction of Simon McBurney, who also composed the text with Matthew Broughton. i lie resuu is a uufisiaiiuy inventive but sprawling and tonally uncertain work repeatedly in danger of losing its way and its audience. A plague-decimated medieval village is left with no ties to ...

... Road to Heaven Lyric, Hammersmith The therapeutic properties of showbusiness have never been better demonstrated than by this show at the Lyric, in which the youngest performer is in the late sixties and the eldest nudeine 90. It began life in a low-income meal site for the elderly in North ampton, Massachusetts, created by Bob Cilman as a diversion for the old folk, something in which they ...

... Worthy display of family strife York Behind the Scenes at the Museum This first stage version at the Theatre Royal of Kate Atkinson's highly acclaimed novel could hardly have a better home. The story, telling the turbulent and dysfunctional family history of character Ruby Lennox, is set in York, which also happens to be Atkinson's birthplace. Bryony Lavery's adaptation and Damian Cruden's ...

... Dog Well Done Finborough If you ever buy a hot dog from a street vendor, spare a thought for the web of vendetta and violence that might have provided seasoning. Potentially a microcosm for dogeat-dog capitalism, in Stephen Keyworth's play the sausage sandwich is more literally the focal point of a cycle of blood-lust perpetuated by the dog of war Grist a tyrannical bringer of economic ...

... Are Unheard Memories Sweet? Edinburgh/Touring Lung Ha's, the theatre company which provides opportunities for adults with learning difficulties, has stepped back from its large-scale productions of recent years for a more compact, touring show. Not that cc-directors and writers lohn Mitchell and Louise Ironside have compromised story telling or production values in any way. This is a ...

... Oliver and Cinderella Hackney Empire/Touring Panto has come early, in a way and Blue Mountain Theatre is packing them in as usual, this time for a remarkably unsentimental version of the Cinderella story set in Jamaica. You may have already guessed that Cinders (Denise Pitter) is hardly a happy girl, incarcerated as she is as the maid in her step-family's home. Help comes in the form of not ...

... Money from America Pentameters The themes of this new play by Tom O'Brien recur obsessively in Irish theatre: the conflict over land, the scars the Irish diaspora left on those who went away and those who stayed behind, the baleful influence of whiskey and porter. O'Brien at first handles them deftly, but loses credibility when the plot turns into a simplistic whodunit. Phil Newman's smoke ...

... An Ideal Husband Huddersfield/Touring A curious play this. Wilde's wit and satire are as fresh and biting as ever but the political scandal at the heart of An Ideal Husband seems to be too seriously han dled. It should be sent up. This is not, after all, a Rattigan play. Seen at the Lawrence Batley, Middle Ground's touring version is packed with style, particularly style of manner and of move ...

... Don't Forget Me Paisley/Touring Godfrey Hamilton's new play is poetic and deeply moving and it is also very funny indeed, full of barbed comments about the state of play in Hollywood, and the state of players in the film- going world. This is the story of Angus a movie producer haunted by the image of a B-movie queen and his young lover Chip, an aspiring movie star who enters the Hollywood ...

... Comic shock of dementia Birmingham A Wedding Story Portraying Alzheimer's disease is a risk, and no apology would be good enough if a writer or actor got it wrong. Bryony Lavery gets it so unerringly right in her new play at The Door at the Rep that the audience is comfortable with laughing even while witnessing the shocking descent into dementia which Evelyn, a doctor married to a ...

... 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 ...