C01 1 <#FLOB:C01\>The world according to Sessions

C01 2 THERE was a moment in the second half of John C01 3 Sessions's<&|>sic! Travelling Tales at the Haymarket C01 4 Theatre when the remarkable entertainer lost his way. He was C01 5 in the middle of a conversation between Gustav Mahler and Bob Dylan C01 6 (such bizarre encounters seem strangely natural in his surreal C01 7 world) and suddenly he realised he was repeating himself.

C01 8 With a smile, Sessions stopped, apologised and waited for a C01 9 lengthy prompt before proceeding on his merry way. In most shows, C01 10 such a gaffe would be an occasion of toe-curling embarrassment. C01 11 With Sessions it was endearing, offering reassuring proof that he C01 12 is human after all.

C01 13 The are those who profoundly dislike John Sessions, dismissing C01 14 him as an insufferable smart aleck. And it is easy to see why he C01 15 provokes such envious sniping.

C01 16 It seems unfair that one man should be blessed with so many C01 17 gifts - a great facility for mimicry, real erudition, a beguiling C01 18 stage presence and a magpie mind that seems equally at home amid C01 19 high art and naff pop songs. He is, I suppose, an C01 20 <*_>e-acute<*/>litist comedian. Much of the enjoyment lies in C01 21 spotting the cultural references, keeping up with C01 22 Sessions's<&|>sic! own racing intellect. For those who get left C01 23 behind, his shows must be a peculiarly dispiriting, even C01 24 humiliating experience.

C01 25 What saves him from the charge that he is little more than a C01 26 tiresome show-off is his warm enthusiasm. It is infectious, almost C01 27 child-like, drawing the audience into the conspiracy of his own C01 28 imagination. And that imagination is certainly at full stretch in C01 29 Travelling Tales.

C01 30 If the show isn't quite as impressive as his solo Napoleon C01 31 show, seen at the West End a couple of years ago, it is because it C01 32 lacks a single unifying theme. Here Sessions takes on the whole C01 33 world and it is a touch too ambitious a subject even for him.

C01 34 We begin with God, seated on a step-ladder and lamenting the C01 35 pollution and destruction of the planet. Fears that this is going C01 36 to be an earnest lecture in Greenery are dispelled, however, with C01 37 the realisation that God is in fact Keith Floyd, uncorking another C01 38 bottle of wine and slurring instructions at his cameraman.

C01 39 From here the show spins dizzily out of control. In the C01 40 rainforest, tree frogs are auditioning for the cover of National C01 41 Geographic magazine just as Robert de Niro is leaving Manhattan for C01 42 the dubious delights of English pantomime, directed by one of C01 43 Sessions's<&|>sic! finest creations, the terminally camp Billy C01 44 Twinkle. Mahler and the young Hitler travel from Vienna of 1907 to C01 45 present-day America, and the ancient Greek heroes somehow get C01 46 entangled with the Bront<*_>e-umlaut<*/> family in Yorkshire.

C01 47 What's remarkable is that this lunacy all seems perfectly C01 48 logical during the show itself and it is only afterwards that you C01 49 find yourself rubbing your eyes with wonder as if awakened from C01 50 some fantastic dream. For as well as being a fine impersonator (he C01 51 does a 'monster' Nigel Kennedy impression), Sessions is a C01 52 first-rate story-teller. His dotty narrative is so compelling that C01 53 the audience is often reduced to attentive silence, despite the C01 54 many excellent jokes, hanging on to the story-line and genuinely C01 55 anxious to know what is going to happen next.

C01 56 And in the show's final scene, featuring Saddam Hussein, C01 57 Sessions creates a shiver of real evil, followed by the C01 58 far-from-reassuring news that God is going to take a holiday for a C01 59 century or so and is handing over to his deputy, Bob Monkhouse.

C01 60 It has to be said that Travelling Tales leaves a lot C01 61 of trailing loose ends, and the director, Tim Supple, might C01 62 usefully have suggested a few cuts. But as Sessions leaves the C01 63 stage at the end, his whole suit drenched in sweat after such C01 64 Herculean labours, only the most churlish could fail to respond to C01 65 such a prodigious and individual talent.

C01 66 C01 67 Ibsen's icy epic

C01 68 THIS revival of Ibsen's Brand at the Aldwych C01 69 Theatre is a rare attempt to stage what would surely have C01 70 been, had the wireless been invented in 1866, the first great radio C01 71 play. Like Peer Gynt it is a verse drama which was never C01 72 intended for performance, and it is not surprising that there have C01 73 been only three British revivals this century.

C01 74 The sheer scale of the piece seems to have scared off C01 75 directors. The evening requires a storm at sea, an avalanche and a C01 76 digestible translation for what was originally seven hours of C01 77 Norwegian rhyming verse.

C01 78 This icy epic poem (now down to three hours), which Peter Hall C01 79 once compared to a Bruckner symphony, comes loaded with Ibsen's C01 80 theme of the importance of conscience and individual will. Roy C01 81 Marsden has taken on the role of Pastor Brand, a totally C01 82 uncompromising figure who violently rebels against the pettiness C01 83 and evil of society and who is confronted every step of his way by C01 84 a series of agonising choices.

C01 85 The part requires a fire in the belly and the air of having C01 86 walked out of a poem by Shelley or an engraving by Blake. Brand C01 87 wanders about the frozen north like a human blowtorch, his voice C01 88 one of terrifying rebuke. His tragedy is that in all that thin air C01 89 he forgets how to love his own: he refuses his mother absolution on C01 90 her death bed, he allows his son to die of cold, and then takes C01 91 away mementos of the boy from his distraught mother.

C01 92 Everything and everyone is sacrificed to his all-or-nothing C01 93 fanaticism. Ibsen said that "Brand was myself in my best C01 94 moments", which makes one wonder what he was like on an off C01 95 day.

C01 96 Marsden certainly looks the part of the eccentric divine in his C01 97 frock-coat, his bald dome fringed with long hair, nobly uttering C01 98 Robert David MacDonald's rhymed translation - a very fine piece of C01 99 work that manages to be satirical, epic and contemporary all at C01 100 once. Marsden's performance is impressive rather than inspiring, C01 101 but he is particularly good in public scenes where he galvanises C01 102 his parishioners or confronts the corrupt mayor (Ewan Hooper).

C01 103 More emotional weight is carried in the key domestic scenes in C01 104 which he and his wife Agnes (played by a demure Kim Thomson) share C01 105 what must be the bleakest Christmas in all drama.

C01 106 Roger Williams's<&|>sic! staging wisely opts for a bare stage C01 107 with Bernard Culshaw and John Bishop devising between them a set C01 108 which uses smoke and giant angular wedges of light. This gives the C01 109 whole a non-naturalistic feel, lending Ibsen's symbolism an C01 110 al fresco chill.

C01 111 In the end this is a long haul up the north face of a grimly C01 112 forbidding play. But then again there is something rather heroic C01 113 about the whole enterprise of staging this impossible classic in C01 114 the West End.

C01 115 ROBERT GORE-LANGTON

C01 116 C01 117 Gymnastic Ring

C01 118 WITH Maurice B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart's predilection for creating C01 119 ballets of epic dimensions, Ring Round the Ring, given by the C01 120 Ballet of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the Playhouse Theatre, C01 121 Edinburgh, comes as no surprise. It compresses Wagner's Ring C01 122 into a long and intricate spectacle of dance, mime, staging and C01 123 sound a treatment B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart has meted out in the past to C01 124 the Faust legend and to Moli<*_>e-grave<*/>re and Baudelaire.

C01 125 The result this time - running at four and a half hours with C01 126 one interval - is therefore a test of stamina for performers and C01 127 audience alike.

C01 128 It is couched in B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart's free-thinking, C01 129 technically flexible and completely personal idiom. Inevitably, its C01 130 very ambitious intentions lead at times to confusion, obscurity and C01 131 an overspill of quixotic ideas. Br<*_>u-umlaut<*/>nnhilde's rock is C01 132 a grand piano, coloured Japanese fans indicate a rainbow, and the C01 133 court of the Gibichungs seems set in the 1930s.

C01 134 Male dancers have always dominated B<*_>e-acute<*/>jart's work C01 135 and there was fine and extremely varied dancing from Joakim C01 136 Svalberg (Siegfried), Martin James (Hagen) and Peter Schaufuss C01 137 (Alberich). Vladimir Damianov was an eccentric and comic Mime, C01 138 while the most arresting portrayal came from Bart de Block as Loge, C01 139 conceived as a virtuoso Master of Ceremonies.

C01 140 The three most felicitous passages, however, involved a woman - C01 141 Katarzyna Gdaniec as Br<*_>u-umlaut<*/>nnhilde. Her first duet, C01 142 with Patrick de Bana as Wotan, was complex emotionally as well as C01 143 physically. The second was a joyously lustful pas de deux with C01 144 Svalberg as Siegfried. The third, after Siegfried's death, with de C01 145 Block as Loge, was a splendidly fluent ballroom routine danced with C01 146 vitality and grace.

C01 147 Duplicating mirrors helped to lend interest to banal corps de C01 148 ballet choreography that never rose much above unison gymnastic C01 149 exercises, while the sound score was a medley of Wagner on tape, C01 150 on-stage piano, and declamation in German with occasional English C01 151 surtitles. The company, now directed by Schaufuss, made an C01 152 excellent impression as both able and admirably disciplined.

C01 153 KATHRINE SORLEY WALKER

C01 154 C01 155 Struggle with evil

C01 156 FOR the English National Opera to have brought back Tim C01 157 Albery's 1988 production of Britten's Billy Budd to the C01 158 Coliseum so soon after his harrowing new staging in April of C01 159 Peter Grimes was an astute piece of programme C01 160 planning.

C01 161 Presented in such close proximity, his productions of Britten's C01 162 two great sea-drenched operas emerge as probingly complementary in C01 163 their implacably dark, emotionally searing exploration of the C01 164 mutual attraction and simultaneous repulsion of good and evil that C01 165 brings about man's destruction.

C01 166 Each production has its own powerful, clearly defined identity, C01 167 yet they share at least one fundamental, crucially important C01 168 feature: both are stripped of any specific locale, their stories C01 169 set in universal, almost abstractly symbolic or even mythological C01 170 contexts.

C01 171 Underpinned by David Atherton's magnificent, grippingly C01 172 controlled and paced conducting, every aspect of the performance C01 173 seems to have deepened and matured in its first revival.

C01 174 In his singing and starkly intimidating presence, Richard Van C01 175 Allen's Claggart presents an authoritative portrait of the man of C01 176 natural depravity, of intellect without manliness, as Melville C01 177 described him in his original story, and sadness without C01 178 goodness.

C01 179 Philip Langridge's superbly sung and acted Captain Vere conveys C01 180 even more vividly than before the heavy weight of responsibility C01 181 that torments the conscience of the one whose unenviable task it is C01 182 to winnow the good from the associate evil that taints it.

C01 183 In his looks, natural manner and the mellifluous ease of his C01 184 singing, Peter Coleman-Wright is almost ideal as the serene, C01 185 unblemished Billy, the "fond personification", C01 186 again in Melville's words," of perfect human goodness and C01 187 virtue".

C01 188 Indeed there is hardly a weak link, from the graphically C01 189 portrayed Redburn of David Wilson-Johnson in his ENO debut, Flint C01 190 of Paul Napier-Burrows and Novice of Barry Banks to the fervent C01 191 singing of the chorus.

C01 192 There will be nine further performances between now and the end C01 193 of the month of what is one of the ENO's finest achievements - it C01 194 should not be missed by anyone who cares for music theatre at its C01 195 most compelling.

C01 196 ROBERT HENDERSON

C01 197 C01 198 On the question of craziness

C01 199 MAO II

C01 200 by Don deLillo

C01 201 Cape, pounds14.99

C01 202 DON DeLILLO's unerring critical intelligence and his sense of C01 203 the strange relationship between individual lives and the external C01 204 world have made him one of the questioners of American society: His C01 205 last novel, Libra, built a whole structure of personal C01 206 craziness and wider conspiracy around the assassination of C01 207 President Kennedy, but the final effect was less one of explanation C01 208 than a reminder of how persistent complexity can be.

C01 209 DeLillo's 10th novel moves between private and public worlds in C01 210 a similar way, although with less brilliance. At its centre is Bill C01 211 Gray, a reclusive writer whose literary status grows in proportion C01 212 to his isolation, as he maintains an exaggerated privacy in a world C01 213 dominated increasingly by crowds. In the course of the book he is C01 214 drawn from this regulated New England safety into the fluid world C01 215 of international terrorism, on a journey which takes him via London C01 216 and Athens towards Beirut.

C01 217 One phrase from the book - "it was hard to adapt to the C01 218 absence of sense-making things" - conveys DeLillo's view of C01 219 a world where reality is constituted by its own media images, but C01 220 also highlights one of the novel's flaws. Unlike Libra, where C01 221 an element of external plot brought a formally impressive linking C01 222 of the novel's disparate strands, Mao II hinges around C01 223 disintegration. The action becomes progressively dispersed and the C01 224 conclusion, although powerful in its way, fails to bring the book C01 225 together structurally.

C01 226 C02 1 <#FLOB:C02\>You don't give no lip to Big John

C02 2 James Wood

C02 3 U and I: A True Story, by Nicholson Baker (Granta Books, C02 4 pounds12.99)

C02 5 FREUD thought writers fortunate because, unlike most people, C02 6 they can make use of their fantasies and daydreams by turning them C02 7 into art. Nicholson Baker has produced two novels which do not so C02 8 much convert as enact daydream - its cartoonish logic, deep C02 9 inconsequentiality and mad focus. Out of the apparently small and C02 10 superficial, something enduring emerged. His latest book reaches C02 11 glorious new depths of shallowness.

C02 12 U And I is about literary love, about a young writer's C02 13 (Baker's) love - rivalrous, one-sided, hopeless, word-drunk - for C02 14 an old established pro (John Updike). This love is revealed in all C02 15 its permutations of pettiness: Baker envies Updike, adores him, C02 16 wants to usurp him, wants to play golf with him, indulges his C02 17 excesses, corrects his unkindnesses, strives to remain free of his C02 18 influence. Hardly a day has gone by in the last 15 years, says C02 19 Baker, when Updike has not occupied a thought or two. Baker lays C02 20 bare the young writer's embarrassing anxiety, spite and C02 21 childishness. And this is an embarrassing book: reading it is C02 22 like watching an adolescent telephoning his first date. It is C02 23 utterly original. In the long heated history of writers struggling C02 24 with loved predecessors - Johnson on Milton, Proust and his C02 25 parodies, Lawrence on American fiction, James Baldwin on Richard C02 26 Wright - there has never been a book quite like this.

C02 27 Harold Bloom, whom Baker mentions but says he has not read, has C02 28 written about literature as an Oedipal battle of displacement: the C02 29 son must slay the father. Bloom spends much time tracing the C02 30 influence of predecessors on younger rivals. Look for what these C02 31 successors exclude or bury deep, says Bloom. Look for what they C02 32 repress. Baker, reacting against Bloom, does not hide his C02 33 repressions or bury them deep. He hauls them up, shining and C02 34 shameless. His book is thoroughly of its time. It strips away the C02 35 grandeur of literary rivalry and reveals its contemporary C02 36 pettiness. He admits to childish envy and vanity. He dreams about C02 37 Updike, admits to conducting imaginary interviews with the Paris C02 38 Review, considers applying for a Guggenheim because it is the only C02 39 grant that Updike has ever made use of. At a party, the writer Tim C02 40 O'Brien tells him that he goes golfing with Updike. Consumed with C02 41 envy, Baker stamps his foot: "I was of course very hurt C02 42 that of all the youngish writers living in the Boston area, Updike C02 43 had chosen Tim O'Brien and not me as his golfing partner." C02 44 After a digression on the uselessness of male friendship, Baker C02 45 admits to his only desire: "And yet I want to be Updike's C02 46 friend now!"

C02 47 He has met John Updike twice. The two encounters are gripping, C02 48 hilarious and a little revolting. At the first, a book signing C02 49 session, he takes a book to Updike to sign. Slyly, Baker tells C02 50 Updike that he has recently been at the New Yorker office and has C02 51 seen that Updike has a story coming up. Updike, politely and C02 52 patiently, understanding the greasy etiquette, asks Baker what he C02 53 was doing at the New Yorker office. The younger writer announces C02 54 that he too has a story coming up. Updike asks for the date of C02 55 publication, and then says "good". Baker and his mother C02 56 walk away with "flushed, C02 57 what-new-fields-can-we-conquer-now? faces". At his second C02 58 meeting, at a Harvard party, Baker blocks Updike's exit from the C02 59 party, engages him in obsequious nothings, and then sees Updike C02 60 backing away from him, "knowing the obligatory C02 61 praise-heaping and grovelling scene was coming". Baker asks C02 62 his girlfriend if she thinks he is a better writer than John C02 63 Updike. She tells him that Updike is a better writer, but that C02 64 Baker is smarter. He is crushed. His mother tells him, consolingly, C02 65 that he will be a better writer than Updike. Baker faces the C02 66 terrible truth, in mock-italics: "He writes better C02 67 than I do and he is smarter than I am ... this observation C02 68 will surprise no one; it came, however, as quite a shock to C02 69 me."

C02 70 Above all, this delightful book is about the exquisite, C02 71 luxurious, sick-making challenge and seduction of style. It is C02 72 a book about words, and about the envy by one who uses them well of C02 73 one who uses them consummately. It is impossible to imagine Baker C02 74 having this obsession about, say, Raymond Carver of Joyce Carol C02 75 Oates. In this sense, there is no better choice than John Updike. C02 76 Of all American writers he is the greatest and most infuriating C02 77 stylist. He stuffs his sentences with satiny cushions and padded C02 78 delights. His sentences have an easy plumpness which maddens the C02 79 young writer: one wants to be as good as him, but not that C02 80 good. His elastic brilliance, his serene liquidity drives Baker C02 81 almost to despair. "I wanted so much to have the assured C02 82 touch, the adjectival resourcefulness." Repeatedly, Baker C02 83 confesses astonishment at Updike's almost seasonal prolificity C02 84 ("A man so naturally verbal that he could write his memoirs C02 85 on a ladder"). Indulgently, Baker corrects Updike, C02 86 especially for using adjectives like shivering, as in C02 87 "shivering petrol", words "slightly too C02 88 cutely anthropomorphising for their contexts." He ticks C02 89 Updike off for criticising Nabokov for lacking suspense: C02 90 "Updike is no master of cliffhanging himself C02 91 remember." There is a comic disparity in all this: Baker C02 92 envies Updike for his serene, comprehensive, wise professionalism. C02 93 But Baker is himself frantic, flickering, partial.

C02 94 In the end, amor vincit: "I find C02 95 that whenever I try to point out a flaw in his writing, I C02 96 fail." Baker is moving on how, when he was writing his C02 97 first novel, Updike's slim perfect book, Of The Farm, was his C02 98 constant guide. Every day, he read a few pages before beginning his C02 99 own writing. "It became the measure of all worth ... more C02 100 than once I had tears in my eyes ...", parts of it were C02 101 "so fine that my competitiveness went away". This C02 102 is the catharsis of true love.

C02 103 For any writer or strong reader this book will delight. For C02 104 this particular reader, who might as well admit to a similar C02 105 obsession with Saul Bellow, this book spoke like a friend. Baker is C02 106 unique, but he is not alone. A man called Louis Gallo wrote a book C02 107 in the sixties a little like U And I called Like You're Nobody. It C02 108 was about a young writer's (Gallo's) joy at receiving a fan letter C02 109 from the great Saul Bellow, and how he ruined the friendship by C02 110 over-reacting, and sending mad and indiscreet letters back. When he C02 111 sent 30 pages of his journal, Bellow decided he'd had enough and C02 112 closed the correspondence. The end of the friendship made Gallo C02 113 wistful: "You end where you begin," he writes, C02 114 "like you're nobody." The difference is that Baker C02 115 is no nobody. He is a fine writer. Twenty years ago Susan Sontag C02 116 asked for a new criticism, "an erotics of C02 117 criticism" - loving, staying close to the loved object, C02 118 sensitive to feeling. Baker, in his hilarious, embarrassing, insane C02 119 and moving way, has produced just that.

C02 120 C02 121 From Mad Max to the mad prince

C02 122 To see or not to see? Mel Gibson's Hamlet is not the C02 123 Shakespearean tragedy some critics feared, says Derek C02 124 Malcolm in his review of the new films

C02 125 A FILM is a film and a play is a play. What is more, they have, C02 126 for the most part, entirely different audiences. This Franco C02 127 Zeffirelli understands better than most, as he did with Romeo and C02 128 Juliet. With Hamlet (Odeon, Haymarket, U) he has produced a C02 129 version of Shakespeare that is very likely not to satisfy purists C02 130 (who may see no reason why Hamlet and his mum should be C02 131 incestuously inclined), but is attractive enough to look at and C02 132 simple enough to follow for a wider audience than would usually be C02 133 persuaded to pay good money to watch the Bard.

C02 134 In the eyes of this wider audience, of course, the bull point C02 135 about the film will be the presence as Hamlet of Mel Gibson, who C02 136 would pass as a poor man's Laurence Olivier only in the worst of C02 137 thunderstorms but has a following of almost lethal dimensions C02 138 compared with any classical actor one could name.

C02 139 He makes a plain-spoken, rather uncomplicated Hamlet who C02 140 sometimes seems scarcely to know what's hitting him but bravely C02 141 tries to mould fate to his own ends all the same. Which is not C02 142 necessarily a bad interpretation if only because it makes one look C02 143 past the character at the play itself.

C02 144 What we then find is a very attractive castle, bathed in C02 145 unfamiliarly good weather in which almost everybody is slowly going C02 146 mad, possibly because of over-familiarity with a score which for C02 147 Ennio Morricone is rather lacklustre.

C02 148 "You can't act madness, you can only suggest a lack of C02 149 normalcy", the estimable Anthony Hopkins said the other day C02 150 of his formidable Dr Lecter in Silence Of The Lambs. And it is to C02 151 the credit of Helena Bonham-Carter's sad little Ophelia that she C02 152 produces a mad scene that seems to have digested that lesson very C02 153 well.

C02 154 Ian Holm's Polonius is not so much dotty as nicely eccentric, C02 155 as if he's a man used to making even himself giggle but reasonably C02 156 trustworthy all the same, and Alan Bates' stolid King surveys the C02 157 scene with every hope that, amid the general dottiness, his own C02 158 guilty soul is unlikely to be noticed. Certainly not beside his C02 159 anxious wife (Glenn Close) whom I must confess reminded me more of C02 160 Lady Macbeth than any other Gertrude I have come across.

C02 161 All these are sound performances, with Close's perhaps the most C02 162 consistently watchable, though some of the auxiliaries only just C02 163 pass muster. They are, though, as pretty as the sets and many of C02 164 his admirers may possibly think Gibson's Hamlet even prettier.

C02 165 Certainly David Watkin's photography bathes everything in the C02 166 best possible light and Zeffirelli's conception, which is akin to C02 167 the kind of psychological thriller filmgoers will instantly C02 168 recognise, is funnier than usual and without its darker, more C02 169 complicated undertones. A Hamlet, in short, that is not the tragedy C02 170 some thought it might be and is, in consequence, making more money C02 171 on the American market than most would have suspected.

C02 172 Ken Loach's Riff-Raff (National Film Theatre, with a run C02 173 from Friday) was one of David Puttnam's developments when head of C02 174 Columbia and, when he left, eventually became a Channel Four C02 175 project. It will be shown at the Director's Fortnight at Cannes, C02 176 where there isn't much doubt that it will be treated as film rather C02 177 than jumped-up television.

C02 178 And so this beguilingly artful piece of work by one of our best C02 179 directors should be, small budget or no. It is his most successful C02 180 for some time, a parable that's politically and socially relevant C02 181 but also immensely entertaining, like Mike Leigh's High Hopes. It's C02 182 sad that television will claim it so soon after Cannes.

C02 183 Set on a London building site where a group of itinerant C02 184 workers assemble under the orders of a hectoring ganger, it has all C02 185 Loach's unforced and unpatronising sympathy for the underdog and, C02 186 like most good comedies, a serious point to make. In fact, if C02 187 anyone is patronised it is possibly the audience, since just C02 188 occasionally its polemic sticks out like a sore thumb as if we C02 189 can't know what it is talking about - the greed and exploitation of C02 190 the past era - unless we are told in so many words.

C02 191 That, however, is my only criticism of Riff-Raff, which C02 192 otherwise orchestrates a fine set of players with an unerring feel C02 193 for the real truths of ordinary life at the lower end.

C02 194 The writer, Bill Jesse, who died before he could see the final C02 195 cut, tells his story through Stevie, a young Glaswegian just out of C02 196 Barlinnie prison, and Susan, the girl he falls for, a would-be C02 197 singer who will probably never quite get it together.

C02 198 In these parts, Robert Carlyle and Emer McCourt are excellent C02 199 but there are so many fine little cameos that it seems invidious to C02 200 single out anybody. This is ensemble playing at its best, and the C02 201 result is as impossible to dislike as it is for a one-legged cat to C02 202 bury a turd on a frozen pond.

C02 203 C03 1 <#FLOB:C03\>Falstaff

C03 2 Theatre Royal, Glasgow

C03 3 THIS may be Scottish Opera, but Ian Judge's new production of C03 4 Verdi's comedy is decisively English. Rather as he did with C03 5 The Comedy of Errors at Stratford last year, Judge has C03 6 created a world loud with mid-20th-century references, which C03 7 include the nudges, nods, winks and other slickly timed movements C03 8 of a very English comic style. If it were needed, the programme C03 9 offers a clue to this, though its allusions to Donald McGill are C03 10 less apposite than the still from Terry and June.

C03 11 Falstaff becomes a Jimmy Edwards figure, and the Garter Inn a C03 12 rather smart hotel, imposing certain standards of dress on its C03 13 clientele: even Bardolph and Pistol are in plus fours, plaids and C03 14 Argyll socks, while Falstaff's page is a Bunter lookalike, reading C03 15 the Beano between items of tuck.

C03 16 Mark Thompson's set is excellent for the opening scene, but it C03 17 provides no effective change of place for Ford's house or for the C03 18 final scene in the park, where the chandeliers, mirror ceiling, C03 19 doorways, grand staircase and upper landing all convey a C03 20 dislocation way beyond the scope of this production. More C03 21 consistently successful are Thompson's costumes, a lively parade of C03 22 discords between Elizabethan and modern dress. Fenton, for C03 23 instance, sports a royal-blue jacket halfway between doublet and C03 24 blazer, while the other men have ruffs jammed over essentially C03 25 20th-century clothes; and the women's crinolines are made up in C03 26 1950s prints.

C03 27 It is all very smart, bright and tidy. There is no trace of C03 28 dirt and heedless self-indulgence slopping around this Falstaff, C03 29 who is already such a trim old gent at the start that when he comes C03 30 on attired for his wooing he has to appear wildly over the top. And C03 31 at the start of Act III he is presented not drenched with river C03 32 water but soaking himself in a hot bath. It seems unlikely that C03 33 such a jolly codger represents any kind of sexual threat, and C03 34 Gordon Sandison, perhaps bounded by the persona given him, does not C03 35 suggest much physical energy on his singing, which is brushed in C03 36 lightly and sometimes waywardly.

C03 37 There are, however, some excellent vocal performances. Steven C03 38 Page is an excellent Ford, deeply dark in tone and absolutely C03 39 emphatic; he also nimbly cuts in the comic possibilities of his C03 40 disguise without losing an ounce of his power and seriousness. John C03 41 Mark Ainsley and Susannah Waters make a very personable pair of C03 42 young lovers; it is a delight to hear Ainsley's lovely singing in C03 43 the theatre, and Waters, too, is youthfully fresh, with her own C03 44 bubbling agility.

C03 45 Maria Prosperi, the only native Italian in the cast, uses the C03 46 language more wittily and lusciously than her companions, and C03 47 contributes a spirited, brightly sung Alice. But when everybody C03 48 else in the cast is British, and when this is such a genial C03 49 pantomime of a production, it does seem odd to hear it sung in C03 50 Italian.

C03 51 John Mauceri in the pit seems to be trying to stimulate an C03 52 orchestra which responds only with odd moments of beauty or C03 53 elan<&|>sic!.

C03 54 PAUL GRIFFITHS

C03 55 C03 56 Yet there is method in it

C03 57 Geoff Brown on Mel Gibson in Hamlet; Freedom is Paradise, War C03 58 Party and (below) Riff-Raff

C03 59 So how does Mad Max cope with the Mad Dane? An A for effort, at C03 60 least. In preparation for Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (U, Odeon, C03 61 Haymarket), Mel Gibson's Australian vowels were ruthlessly massaged C03 62 by a voice trainer, now he enunciates the unreal clarity of a C03 63 speaking clock. Still, you can always grasp the man's meaning: he C03 64 shapes and projects Shakespeare's verse (or what remains after C03 65 Zeffirelli's scissors have cut their swath) with consistent C03 66 intelligence.

C03 67 The contours of Gibson's pin-up face are deliberately smudged C03 68 by a beard, moustache, and close-cropped hair, though the blue eyes C03 69 flash their usual magic. He mounts the soliloquies with fear, and, C03 70 barring a tendency to rant and roll his eyes when excited, acquits C03 71 himself well. His swordplay dances with force and wit. He is grave, C03 72 anguished, tender, playful: all the things Hamlet should be. Yet, C03 73 though Mel Gibson is never for one moment bad, almost everybody C03 74 else in the cast is better. And for all his effort we never get C03 75 under this Hamlet's skin; he remains Mel, Prince of Hollywood, C03 76 embarked on a worthy exercise.

C03 77 As with his Romeo and Juliet and the Taming of C03 78 the Shrew films in the Sixties, Zeffirelli's mission is to C03 79 bring the Bard - kicking and screaming if need be - before young, C03 80 untutored audiences. Gibson is certainly the star to pull them in; C03 81 and for those with brief attention spans, the script prepared by C03 82 Zeffirelli and Christopher De Vore, forges constant short-cuts to C03 83 Shakespeare's highlights. There is no Fortinbras, no opening C03 84 battlement scene, no words of advice to the players: everything is C03 85 over within two hours and 15 minutes.

C03 86 Only the dustiest academic would rage over the lacunae: the C03 87 director's task was to deliver a dynamic film, not a sacred relic. C03 88 If anything, Zeffirelli is too timid. Gertrude's sexual temperature C03 89 is raised to suit the spiky Glenn Close (note the impassioned C03 90 grapplings in the closet scene); otherwise, the interpretations are C03 91 tried and true. Here is Claudius, the pleasure-seeking King (Alan C03 92 Bates); here is pottering, crafty Polonius (Ian Holm, pottering a C03 93 mite too much); here is Ophelia (Helen Bonham Carter), sweetly C03 94 waifish one minute, hollow-eyed with lunacy the next. Best of all, C03 95 here is the Ghost: Paul Scofield invests the role with a depth of C03 96 despair that takes the film, however briefly, way beyond the dull C03 97 realm of competence. Visually, Hamlet offers another mixed C03 98 bag. For exteriors, Zeffirelli draws on three British castles, C03 99 melded together; as photographed by David Watkin, the setting C03 100 easily looks cold and imprisoning enough to be Elsinore. Once C03 101 characters step through the giant doors, they emerge into C03 102 Shepperton Studios. Individual design details please: Hamlet C03 103 delivers his 'fishmonger' taunts perched on a library shelf, C03 104 forcing Polonius to mount a ladder, which Hamlet impishly pushes C03 105 away. But too often sets appear over-dressed, with ugly items that C03 106 obstinately resemble cheap stage props. By filming Hamlet, C03 107 Zeffirelli and Mel Gibson are treading in famous footsteps: C03 108 Olivier's and, in silent days, Sir Johnstone Forbes-Robertson's and C03 109 Sarah Bernhardt's (in 1900).

C03 110 Ninety-one years later, Mel Gibson's Hamlet appears decent, C03 111 slick, easily digestible: a fast-food Hamlet for the moment, C03 112 without the stature to make it a Hamlet for the ages.

C03 113 Characters in the powerful Soviet film Freedom is C03 114 paradise (12, Renoir) are society's cast-offs: delinquents, C03 115 tucked away in a boarding school whose harsh regime prepares them C03 116 for their probable adult destination - prison. The hero, played C03 117 with sullen gravity by a 13-year-old handful called Volodya C03 118 Kozyrev, escapes to make the huge trek from Soviet central Asia to C03 119 Archangel in the far north, where his father serves a long prison C03 120 sentence. Despite the title, the lad finds little sign of paradise C03 121 on the road: just world-weary faces, scraping a living by fair or C03 122 fowl means, and a few small kindnesses. The writer-director Sergei C03 123 Bodrov, born in Khabarovsk, in the Soviet Union's far eastern C03 124 corner, never knew his own father until he was 30; he makes the C03 125 meeting between questing son and long-lost father the emotional C03 126 high-point. Elsewhere, Bodrov paints a bleak portrait of C03 127 Gorbachov's Soviet Union (the film was made in 1989): drab lives, C03 128 class divisions, constant subservience to the state police.

C03 129 At first the narrative is compressed too tightly (the film C03 130 lasts 75 minutes) but once Bodrov's hero begins his trek north the C03 131 scenes expand, the images blossom, and the desolate story of an C03 132 urchin at large in a loveless world grips the audience by the C03 133 throat. For those worried about value for money, Freedom is C03 134 Paradise is supported by Irene Jouannet's Finale, a C03 135 precious, 14-minute French short inspired by an incident in C03 136 Nijinsky's long mental decline.

C03 137 Shot in 1987, released in America in 1989: Franc Roddams C03 138 War Party (18, Cannon Haymarket) has taken its time. The C03 139 film emerges after Dances With Wolves pushed Native C03 140 Americans and their plight high up in the public consciousness. C03 141 War Party - no preening epic this, but watchable screen C03 142 fodder - offers a contemporary variation. During a re-enacted C03 143 battle between Indians and cavalry, staged to boost a depressed C03 144 Montana town, a hot-headed white settles an old score by shooting C03 145 an Indian youth dead. This launches a spiral of violence and racist C03 146 attacks; with blood on their hands, the dead Indian's pals head for C03 147 the hills and rediscover their ethnic identity.

C03 148 War Party makes a stab at grappling with Indian C03 149 culture, and gathers authentic Native Americans to support C03 150 brat-packers Billy Wirth and Kevin Dillon. Yet his is C03 151 basically a pursuit movie in disguise: the lads retreat, a posse C03 152 sets out, a helicopter is brought down (with bow and arrow), an C03 153 Indian is scalped, and so it goes on.

C03 154 C03 155 Fully persuaded without reason

C03 156 In the disconcerting event that I find myself on a desert C03 157 island with nothing but a gramophone and a few choice musical C03 158 moments for company, I shall certainly hope that the cymbal clash C03 159 of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony is among them. Not the entire C03 160 gargantuan symphony: life is short, even on a desert island. Just C03 161 that cymbal clash, the tinkle from the triangle player that C03 162 accompanies it, and the glorious Adagio that surrounds it.

C03 163 Why? Because it is irrational, extravagant, arguably C03 164 unnecessary - and utterly heartwarming. So it would serve to remind C03 165 me of what the art I left behind is all about.

C03 166 There is no rationality in making two skilled musicians sit C03 167 motionless for 80 minutes in order to play one note each. C03 168 Especially the triangle player: the cymbal wielder can at least C03 169 flesh out his performance with a few extrovert twirls of wrists and C03 170 forearms. It certainly is not economical. An accountant would chop C03 171 them, particularly if he knew what some scholars believe: that C03 172 Bruckner never actually approved this cymbal clash. Most C03 173 accountants don't know this, thank goodness: they already have C03 174 enough to say in running the music business.

C03 175 Conductors, who do know, realise that this great movement - C03 176 which rises on waves of noble sequences from tragedy to something C03 177 approaching transcendental triumph - demands, at its peak, the C03 178 sheer physicality of metal clashing metal. Man cannot live by C03 179 strings and woodwind alone. This is music's equivalent of a scoring C03 180 footballer's exultant punch in the air.

C03 181 In the Festival Hall on Monday that moment, and what followed, C03 182 certainly spoke in heroic terms. Bernard Haitink's marvellous C03 183 interpretation, which managed to combine a sense of spaciousness C03 184 and long-term purpose with moments of high drama, was the more C03 185 remarkable for being achieved with an orchestra, the Dresden C03 186 Staatskapelle, that hardly dazzled with technique. The wind C03 187 sections were not especially well blended; the strings beefy but C03 188 only intermittently shimmering.

C03 189 Indeed, the stolid performance of Mozart's 'Haffner' Symphony C03 190 that preceded the Bruckner had raised forebodings. But then Haitink C03 191 seemed to grip the performers in the fist made by his own vision C03 192 and intense concentration, as so often happens when he is C03 193 unshackled from Covent Garden and allowed to roam the epic C03 194 symphonic fields that are his natural terrain. The way in which his C03 195 subtle speed variations and mature, nonsensational approach benefit C03 196 the flow of Bruckner's vast paragraphs is easy to fathom. But how C03 197 this seemingly placid Dutchman, exuding reason and moderation, can C03 198 suddenly inject such searing anger into, of all things, a C03 199 lugubrious passage for Wagner tubas: that is a wonderful mystery, C03 200 and long may it continue to be so.

C03 201 On the following night this unofficial celebration of C03 202 Austro-Germanic heavy-weights continued with an orchestra on much C03 203 classier form: the London Philharmonic, responding superbly to the C03 204 sophisticated demands of Christoph von Dohn<*_>a-acute<*/>nyi. This C03 205 was a courageous programme: to open a Festival Hall concert with C03 206 the sparse cries and whispers of Webern's ten-minute Symphony, Op C03 207 21, is - in audience-stirring terms - like attempting to set fire C03 208 to damp leaves.

C03 209 But the orchestra overcame an initial tentativeness (no music C03 210 exposes individual players so cruelly) and later produced a vividly C03 211 characterised, immaculately precise account of Schoenberg's Five C03 212 Orchestral Pieces. Emanuel Ax glided elegantly through Beethoven's C03 213 Second Piano Concerto, and the concert ended with a muscular, C03 214 highly organised account of Schumann's Fourth Symphony, lacking C03 215 only the occasional poetic reverie. Dohn<*_>a-acute<*/>nyi is a C03 216 ferociously intelligent conductor but not, one suspects, a C03 217 dreamer.

C03 218 RICHARD MORRISON

C03 219 C04 1 <#FLOB:C04\>Proms scale the best of British

C04 2 OPERA

C04 3 IT WOULD be hard to find a more ideal work for the First Night C04 4 Of The Proms than Elgar's great oratorio, The Dream of C04 5 Gerontius.

C04 6 Its size, sound and style fit the Royal Albert Hall like a C04 7 glove, and it is British to its core.

C04 8 It received a magnificent performance on Friday when the 97th C04 9 season of Proms opened, televised live on BBC2, broadcast on Radio C04 10 3, and attended by the Prince of Wales.

C04 11 Under the BBC Symphony Orchestra's excellent Chief Conductor C04 12 Andrew Davis, it was magnificent.

C04 13 Cheers C04 14 First rate playing by the orchestra, three superb soloists, and C04 15 that glorious sound which only our British amateur choruses C04 16 produce.

C04 17 These were the BBC Symphony Chorus, joined by the professional C04 18 BBC Singers and the London Philharmonic Choir, and they earned our C04 19 fervent cheers. There are eight more weeks of exciting Proms to C04 20 come.

C04 21 Watch this space.

C04 22 AMERICAN Peter Sellars' hippy Los Angeles version of The Magic C04 23 Flute, at Glyndebourne, remains tacky, tasteless and inept, and is C04 24 not helped by being sung this year in Alice Goodman's dated Sixties C04 25 American slang.

C04 26 Andrew Davis again conducts admirably, and the singing is C04 27 stronger than last year. But his Flute remains ruined by the C04 28 mindless self-promotion of Sellars. It's all such a waste of talent C04 29 and Mozart's music.

C04 30 IF Sellars can spare the time, he should go and see Carmen C04 31 Jones at the Old Vic. There he will learn, from Oscar Hammerstein's C04 32 brilliant adaptation and Simon Callow's inspired direction, just C04 33 how the experts update classic operas.

C04 34 Carmen Jones, set in an American parachute factory during The C04 35 Second World War, has all the drive and passion of Bizet's original C04 36 opera.

C04 37 The latest arrival in the role of Carmen, Paula Ingram, gives C04 38 what must be the sexiest, best sung performance on the West End C04 39 stage.

C04 40 Not to be missed at any price.

C04 41 DAVID FINGLETON

C04 42 C04 43 A racing certainty on the Turf turns into a saddle soap

C04 44 WEEKEND VIEW

C04 45 By THE SCOUT (John Garnsey)

C04 46 HORSERACING folk tend to like a drink. None of the great C04 47 tipplers of the Turf I know, however, look quite as disgustingly C04 48 healthy as Mike Hardy.

C04 49 He is bright-eyed and youthful even when emerging from the C04 50 stiff end of the most monumental hangover.

C04 51 Hardy, played by Mark Greenstreet, is a central character in C04 52 the new racing drama Trainer (BBC1).

C04 53 He is a young assistant trainer struggling with a drink C04 54 problem, but blessed with an immense talent.

C04 55 Unfortunately, he and the rest of the cast bear little relation C04 56 to racing reality.

C04 57 Vices C04 58 Furthermore, our hero committed a cardinal sin in the opening C04 59 scene of the first episode.

C04 60 He was late for morning exercise - and not for the first time, C04 61 we were led to understand. No trainer would stand for that.

C04 62 He cannot afford to have valuable horseflesh milling around C04 63 unsupervised.

C04 64 Mike's villainous and womanising boss Hugo Latimer, played by C04 65 Patrick Ryecart, was the oiliest and slimiest wretch on earth. You C04 66 wouldn't give him house room, let alone allow him to train your C04 67 horses.

C04 68 He did share certain characteristics with some trainers, but C04 69 the ones I know who might qualify for comparison are far more adept C04 70 at disguising their vices.

C04 71 By the end of episode one, abrasive owner James Brant (Nigel C04 72 Davenport) had vowed to place his horses with young Mike as long as C04 73 he could cure his love affair with the bottle.

C04 74 It is a racing certainty that Susannah York, as recently C04 75 widowed owner Rachel Ware, will provide comfort and motherly C04 76 advice.

C04 77 Assisted by real-life trainer Peter Cundell, producer Gerard C04 78 Glaister has taken great pains to ensure authenticity.

C04 79 The stable and racing sequences do bring some reality to the C04 80 otherwise improbable plot.

C04 81 Insiders say the first episode of Trainer is one of the C04 82 strongest in the series.

C04 83 On that form, it must be rated as just another soap. If the C04 84 plot deteriorates, it will be no more than saddle soap.

C04 85 I HOPE you also caught Alfred Molina's uncannily accurate C04 86 performance as the self-pitying alcoholic genius Tony Hancock in C04 87 Screen One's Hancock (BBC1).

C04 88 From the moment he recreated the famous Blood Donor sketch, you C04 89 knew that this was a quality production.

C04 90 With documentary intensity, we saw how one of our greatest C04 91 comedians since Charlie Chaplin slid down the greasy pole just as C04 92 inexorably as Richard Burton did two decades later.

C04 93 Creative C04 94 Essentially a radio performer, the cult creator of Hancock's C04 95 Half Hour would have flourished today with the greater creative C04 96 opportunities in TV offered by the advent of more discerning C04 97 channels: BBC2 in 1964 and Channel Four in 1982.

C04 98 Instead, we saw the Smirnoff bottle first destroy Hancock's C04 99 relationship with the brilliant Galton and Simpson writing team, C04 100 then his two marriages, and finally himself in 1968.

C04 101 My only quibble is that scriptwriter William Humble devoted his C04 102 two-hour profile to Hancock's final eight years.

C04 103 Younger audiences deserved to know more about why this complex C04 104 denizen of Railway Cuttings, East Cheam, was so side-splittingly C04 105 funny.

C04 106 COMPTON MILLER

C04 107 C04 108 Cooking Boon for absolute beginners

C04 109 YESTERDAY'S VIEW

C04 110 By CAROLINE HENDRIE

C04 111 COOKERY programmes usually fit into one of two categories - C04 112 either a methodical step-by-step course from sensible cooks like C04 113 Delia Smith, or the kind designed to feed the voracious appetites C04 114 of home cooks who know everything, have every gadget and need more C04 115 and more strange and elaborate recipes to keep them hungry for the C04 116 next week's offering.

C04 117 To learn much from either, the kitchen-stool student needs to C04 118 put in a good term's work.

C04 119 But now Michael Elphick and Don Henderson have stepped out of C04 120 their better-known roles as TV detectives, Boon and Bulman, to C04 121 solve the mystery of how to get a hot dinner on the table, with the C04 122 minimum of investigations. Their four-part series, The C04 123 Absolute Beginners' Guide to Cookery (ITV) is aimed at people C04 124 who have survived into adulthood without needing to cook C04 125 anything.

C04 126 With amiable banter, ad-libbing and passages read aloud from C04 127 the cookery book, they quickly rustled up cauliflower cheese, C04 128 spaghetti with meat sauce and lasagne. They kept the pace fast with C04 129 many digressions, a sensible tactic to keep the attention of an C04 130 audience who has not been interested enough in cooking to try it C04 131 before.

C04 132 And pressing themselves as two clumsy oafs - not terribly C04 133 convincingly on Elphick's part as he deftly trimmed a cauli and C04 134 effortlessly stirred up a lump-free white sauce - must have given C04 135 even the latest starter the confidence to look up a recipe or send C04 136 off for the leaflet and have a go.

C04 137 It is a great shame, therefore, that the programme goes out in C04 138 the afternoon, just the time when the most kitchen-shy of either C04 139 sex are generally out at work.

C04 140 Only the culinarily clueless of the South West get an evening C04 141 repeat.

C04 142 LATER, while heating up the frozen fisherman's pie or perhaps C04 143 waiting for the faithful spouse to produce a three-course dinner, C04 144 the exhausted workforce was able to slump in front of the opening C04 145 round of The Krypton Factor (ITV).

C04 146 For the 15th year running, 36 out of an initial 8,000 hopefuls C04 147 are putting themselves through six punishing and pointless mental C04 148 and physical tests, in pursuit of the title the presenter Gordon C04 149 Burns is careful to call Superperson.

C04 150 Since very few women bother to enter, it is highly unlikely C04 151 that one is going to win.

C04 152 Last night, the token female came last in nearly everything, C04 153 though she was better than the heat's winner at general knowledge C04 154 being able to name Charles Dickens as the author of The Old C04 155 Curiosity Shop - and she did have blonde hair.

C04 156 C04 157 Global warming to witty John's fantasy Sessions

C04 158 THEATRE

C04 159 THAT malicious mimic John Sessions is unlikely to be on Vanessa C04 160 Redgrave's Christmas card list after the disgracefully funny C04 161 remarks he makes about his fellow West End star and her C04 162 entourage.

C04 163 His new one-man show, Travelling Tales at the Theatre C04 164 Royal, Haymarket, roams restlessly around the globe, making witty C04 165 connections between the craziest people and places.

C04 166 His geographical fantasies feature a cast of thousands of C04 167 tree-frogs, all played by Sessions, and a momentous meeting between C04 168 Su Pollard and Robert De Niro.

C04 169 You want someone to impersonate Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein C04 170 and the <}_><-|>Bronte<+|>Bront<*_e-umlaut<*/><}/> Sisters? C04 171 Sessions is your man, a comedian with ambitions to conquer the C04 172 world's accents.

C04 173 He is the ultimate school show-off, with a prodigious talent, a C04 174 butterfly mind and enough sex appeal to be the new Dudley Moore or C04 175 Tom Conti as the next British secret weapon to subvert C04 176 Hollywood.

C04 177 MAUREEN PATTON

C04 178 C04 179 Cilla's dating game is blind to change

C04 180 WEEKEND VIEW

C04 181 By SIAN JAMES

C04 182 KIMBERLEY, the hairdresser from Cleveland who sold sexy C04 183 underwear in her spare time, had a bit of a thing about Dirty C04 184 Dancing star Patrick Swayze.

C04 185 While David, the clerical officer from Newcastle said he rather C04 186 fancied someone like Julia Roberts.

C04 187 In the end, Kimberley got Matt from Essex, David went home C04 188 disappointed and Pauline and Glen had a nice time at a sausage C04 189 factory in Spain.

C04 190 Yes, they're back and this time they are really ... well, C04 191 pretty much the same as all the 1,200 contestants in the previous C04 192 six series. Obviously the justification for Cilla Black's C04 193 Blind Date (ITV) comes down to the cliche<&|>sic! C04 194 "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

C04 195 Since its inception in 1985 the programme has changed hardly at C04 196 all. Same appalling, scripted jokey chat-up lines, same type of C04 197 guests.

C04 198 The question is will the seventh season of the show pull in the C04 199 same 14 million audience?

C04 200 The answer is probably but not definitely, because those who C04 201 watch Blind Date fall into two camps. The ones who admit it, and C04 202 the ones who don't.

C04 203 It's the latter category, in which I include myself, that could C04 204 start getting a teensy-weensy bit bored.

C04 205 But on Saturday, the contestants didn't disappoint. Not the C04 206 sort of people you'd kill for to get on a Trivial Pursuit team C04 207 with, they were lambs to our witty slaughter. As usual, behind a C04 208 screen, William, David, and Dickie competed for an all-expenses C04 209 paid date with Marie Claire from Edinburgh, who wanted to be an C04 210 actress.

C04 211 Then there was a filmed report from Neil and Sally, who'd won a C04 212 trip to Portugal in the last series. They had a great laugh in the C04 213 painted-plate shop.

C04 214 But then the bit we all love came when Neil and Sally, in C04 215 separate studios, had to give their verdicts on one another.

C04 216 Neil thought Sally was great fun. He'd take her out with the C04 217 lads any day but she was not someone with whom he could fall in C04 218 love. Sally could sense it.

C04 219 She obviously really liked him and rather sadly said: C04 220 "After holding hands on the beach, I wished it could have C04 221 worked out, that's all."

C04 222 Then three girls competed for the man and another couple, C04 223 Pauline and Glen, reported back from Spain. At first madly in love, C04 224 she'd gone off him since the last series. Glen looked a bit C04 225 upset.

C04 226 And so it will go on tirelessly for another five months. But C04 227 there is still something compulsive about it.

C04 228 Cilla is an excellent hostess and it's all good, harmless, C04 229 innocent fun. But for the first time, the format started to look a C04 230 little tired.

C04 231 I would have liked a couple of changes.

C04 232 C04 233 Bitch is the loser in double trouble

C04 234 LAST NIGHT'S VIEW

C04 235 By COMPTON MILLER

C04 236 ANYONE who watched Mrs Hat and Mrs Red, final episode in BBC2's C04 237 half-hour comedy series Murder Most Horrid, had C04 238 an unexpected treat.

C04 239 I'm normally no admirer of comedienne Dawn French - too brash C04 240 and noisy - but she did superbly well here playing these two C04 241 roles.

C04 242 We first spotted her as frumpy, broke divorcee Katie Hatcliffe C04 243 (alias Mrs Hat) dispiritedly pushing her trolley round a C04 244 supermarket.

C04 245 Enter rude, glamorous Sonya Redfern (Mrs Red) swooshing round C04 246 the most expensive shelves and bellowing at staff about C04 247 "how French brioche could not possibly be made in C04 248 Solihull."

C04 249 The pair are suburban doppelgangers who have never C04 250 met before.

C04 251 On a whim Mrs Hat secretly follows Mrs Red's sports car back C04 252 home by taxi and that was when the fun began.

C04 253 At tightly-written script directed by Bob Spiers cleverly C04 254 established Mrs Red's lady-who-lunches lifestyle, including the C04 255 athletic young black stud for whom she is about to leave her C04 256 long-suffering husband and daughter.

C04 257 C05 1 <#FLOB:C05\>Theatre

C05 2 Henry IV Part I

C05 3 RST, Stratford

C05 4 THIS is Adrian Noble's first production since he took over the C05 5 RSC's orb and sceptre, and it is one which suggests that, whatever C05 6 the company may lack during his reign, it will not be intelligence, C05 7 subtlety or feeling for language. Perhaps significantly, there is C05 8 something casual and cursory about the purely physical comedy of C05 9 the scene in which Falstaff robs the Kent travellers, only to be C05 10 unrobbed by Hal. Certainly, there is no doubting the finesse of the C05 11 teasing post-mortem that follows, or of their next encounter: the C05 12 prince and his favourite wittily play-acting his impending C05 13 confrontation with the king.

C05 14 There is much play-acting here. Robert Stephens' Falstaff does C05 15 a comical imitation of Michael Maloney's Hal, who in turn cruelly C05 16 mimicks Julian Glover's King at his most plummily sombre. Again, C05 17 Maloney has different accents for the pub and for the patrolling C05 18 sheriff, whom he greets in spoof-Sandhurst tones. Even Owen Teale's C05 19 bold Hotspur has a mean vocal line on Glendower, among others. C05 20 Whether or not the text asks it, everybody seems able to put on C05 21 funny voices at the expense of everyone else.

C05 22 This is so marked it must be deliberate policy on Noble's part. C05 23 But why? Perhaps merely to add to the evening's humour or to C05 24 emphasise the characters' relatively sophisticated sense of fun. Or C05 25 perhaps to bring out the amount of role-playing to be found in the C05 26 play. After all, many characters have their hidden agendas: the C05 27 rebels, Hal's retinue, the prince himself.

C05 28 The last is the evening's prime emphasis. Maloney's Hal is a C05 29 good, energetic fellow, and genuinely cares for Falstaff. But his C05 30 most private monologue is packed with what might, paradoxically, be C05 31 called an intensely mystical longing for admiration, fame and C05 32 glory. It is equally evident that Peto has his ambitions, and that C05 33 there is a deadly jealousy between Poins and Falstaff. There is a C05 34 surreptitious battle for the heart of the prince and, through him, C05 35 for Britain. The likeliest to gain is, of course, Falstaff, in C05 36 Stephens' wonderful performance much more a droll, canny observer C05 37 of himself and others than the carousing jester of tradition. C05 38 Perhaps the reading edges too far towards wry sobriety. This C05 39 Falstaff would never have spent six shillings on sack to a C05 40 halfpenny of bread, as the text claims. Again, the great speech on C05 41 honour almost becomes a Socratic dialogue. But there is no missing C05 42 Stephens' emotional force when, in that celebrated play-acting C05 43 scene, he gets a hint of his coming rejection. He dives at the C05 44 prince, half-blubbing out his plea that everyone but him be C05 45 banished. There, unforgettably, is the character's desperation for C05 46 friendship and power.

C05 47 Until Eastcheap unfolds, the staging is simple, a matter of C05 48 backing a throne with a vast cross or importing a few stark chairs. C05 49 Then, suddenly, we are confronted with something beyond a mere C05 50 red-light district. There are red sofas, tables and stairs and, cut C05 51 into a vast red wall, a red upper-room in which a whore is C05 52 absently-mindedly<&|>sic! serving a priest. As for the battle C05 53 scenes, they begin excitingly, with both armies rising from the C05 54 stage's bowels in a huge pyramid of heaving chivalry. But can we C05 55 have better fighting in Henry IV Part II?

C05 56 If Part I is anything to go by, we can expect still C05 57 more complexities from Stephens, Maloney and Glover, a Henry IV who C05 58 begins the evening full of confidence and zeal and ends it wanely C05 59 clutching at his evidently dicky heart. I for one can hardly C05 60 wait.

C05 61 Benedict Nightingale

C05 62 C05 63 THEATRE

C05 64 Matador

C05 65 Queen's

C05 66 IF BIZET'S original story for Carmen Jones is C05 67 included in the tally, this is the third musical with a Spanish C05 68 theme to open in a week and, as its title indicates, the C05 69 bullfighter this time is not the bully boy but the hero: Domingo C05 70 Hernandez, El Ni<*_>n-tilde<*/>o de la Nada, or The Boy C05 71 From Nowhere.

C05 72 His rise from a nowhere village in Andalucia is thrillingly C05 73 staged by Elijah Moshinsky against a succession of William Dudley's C05 74 spectacular sets. A bull ring opens out to become a steep C05 75 hill-town; a grove of moonlit trees gives place to a horizon of C05 76 pasture, and from the towering silhouette of a black bull the six C05 77 dancers who personify this animal advance upon the raw young C05 78 matador.

C05 79 Arlene Phillips is credited with the overall choreography but C05 80 the flamenco dances for the bull men are the work of Rafael C05 81 Aguilar. With upraised arms held forward, the dancers approach in C05 82 their tight phalanx, turn, stamp heels or pause with toes poised on C05 83 the ground like the point of a hoof. In their presence the glamour C05 84 of a bullfight and, though I hate to say so, its glory, seizes the C05 85 imagination.

C05 86 The other dancing is hardly less arresting. Village women, C05 87 crashing pebbles together for emphasis, enact the atrocities of the C05 88 civil war while the brass section of the orchestra zigzags up the C05 89 scale. Hooded penitents, Moorish maids and orange-sellers weave C05 90 amongst each other (a mite kitschy, this) to suggest the richness C05 91 that is Spain. The orchestration of Michael Leander's music is also C05 92 ingenious - note the sound of steam punctuating the melody when C05 93 Domingo and his pal Tomas (Alexander Hanson) are sheltering in C05 94 railway sidings.

C05 95 For the first half the story is workmanlike, not too fettered C05 96 with clich<*_>e-acute<*/>s, and Edward Seago's lyrics contain C05 97 clever half-rhymes. The hero's rise is told from the point of view C05 98 of the disillusioned Tomas, and the Nicky Henson, Domingo's C05 99 would-be Svengali, takes over. But what happens after the interval? C05 100 Stefanie Powers arrives, playing a Hollywood film star C05 101 power-dressed in heliotrope, and utters fearful banalities aimed at C05 102 showing our hero that shedding blood is horrible.

C05 103 The drama collapses, and John Barrowman, who has a toreador's C05 104 shape and his sulky grin, and who sings "A Boy from C05 105 Nowhere" as though he truly feels it, must take on the role C05 106 of representative of the oppressed. I hesitate to suggest leaving C05 107 at the interval, but the evening will seem better by so doing.

C05 108 JEREMY KINGSTON

C05 109 C05 110 Theatre

C05 111 Eight Miles High

C05 112 Octagon, Bolton

C05 113 THE Sixties were the best of times and the worst of times, an C05 114 era of such extremes of hope and horror that Jim Cartwright, author C05 115 of the blisteringly angry Road, could have hooked out some of C05 116 the decade's most typical fish and served them up garnished with C05 117 flower petals and napalm. But Cartwright, author of Eight C05 118 Miles High, is a changed person, content to give us an C05 119 amiable, uncontentious trip back into Flowerland.

C05 120 Director Andrew Hay turns the Octagon arena into some corner of C05 121 a festival field where half the audience can sit on the floor, lie C05 122 back and prop their heads on one another's legs, while nymphettes C05 123 in cheesecloth and crushed velvet wander among them, blowing soap C05 124 bubbles. Up on the dais the actors take turns to sing period hits C05 125 from Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Rolling Stones and others of that C05 126 kidney; between the songs a bit of dialogue between characters is C05 127 allowed, or a longish monologue.

C05 128 These lengthy speeches are a Cartwright characteristic and, at C05 129 their best, they catch the spirit of a part of those times, the C05 130 "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" faction, confident C05 131 that love was here to stay, and the spicier Hell's Angels fringe, C05 132 treated here as a monstrous but merry sideshow.

C05 133 Cliff Howells, who rides in on his Norton, showering the C05 134 audience with beer, is entertainingly awful, but his arms are too C05 135 clean for us to believe his claim to be wearing unwashed C05 136 underpants. More convincing is Bob Manson's benign traveller, C05 137 making appearances in various parts of the theatre to report on his C05 138 circumnavigation of the hippy globe. Jason Yates and Paul Kissaun C05 139 make a likeable pair of workers taking time off to groove: when he C05 140 sings, Yates recalls the strutting postures and tilting torso of C05 141 Mick Jagger, but he has a nicer grin.

C05 142 A sprinkle of harsh irony is added at the end but the piece is C05 143 essentially a three-hour gig: pleasant to hear and see, but too C05 144 pretty. The Sixties were something of a Golden Age, where even the C05 145 light shows, attractively reproduced here, were simple; but the C05 146 decade was shot through with iron and hot steel and to reduce this C05 147 harshness to so little is to falsify the past. Highs come with lows C05 148 and Cartwright has withheld them.

C05 149 JEREMY KINGSTON

C05 150 C05 151 Theatre

C05 152 Getting Attention

C05 153 Royal Court Upstairs

C05 154 THE prolific Martin Crimp's new play, arriving in Sloane Square C05 155 from the West Yorkshire Playhouse, comes over more like a sketch C05 156 than the finished article. Battered children make horrifically C05 157 commonplace copy in the news these days, and Crimp's attempt to C05 158 enter the mind of a young man who mistreats the little girl of his C05 159 common-law wife has a dreadful topicality. Good intentions - to C05 160 show the confused human being behind the monster's mask - fizzle C05 161 out in clich<*_>e-acute<*/> and stereotype, elliptical hints and C05 162 oblique suggestions. The abrupt ending, the beaming social worker's C05 163 approval of the couple's birthday treat for a child who might even C05 164 be dead, is less ironic than perfunctory.

C05 165 Much of the action is seen through the eyes of the neighbours. C05 166 Bridget Turner, a matchless comic actress, is wasted in the part of C05 167 the thin-lipped old woman, respectable, inquisitive, unforgiving, C05 168 but defensively demanding her right to interfere. Predictable she C05 169 may be, but the character hangs together, unlike her male C05 170 counterpart (Paul Slack): a slob deserted by his wife, his own C05 171 children in care, and half conniving at the couple's abuses through C05 172 prurience. If the message is that all men are potential C05 173 abusers, it needs more coherent expression than the shapeless C05 174 writing it gets here.

C05 175 The second half brings the neighbours forward to their shared C05 176 landing to address us as witnesses. Meanwhile, nothing much C05 177 illuminates the behaviour of the brutal couple: a pair closely C05 178 bound sexually, whose dialogue has the terse repetitiveness of the C05 179 non-communicating. Sal (Diana Hunter) is physical, amiable, a bit C05 180 clueless. Nick (Nigel Cooke) is nervy, tense and demands respect, C05 181 especially from the child, who is a constant reminder of his C05 182 predecessor. He is quite capable of breaking a toy through C05 183 carelessness or scalding a baby, with no malicious intent.

C05 184 The exploration of motives goes no further, and the rather C05 185 superficial exercise is not helped by the unvaried pace of Jude C05 186 Kelly's production. Rob Jones's design, interiors and exterior of C05 187 south London council flats sprawling over the acting area, mirrors C05 188 the play's uncertain social location somewhere between decaying C05 189 squalor and entrepreneurial acquisitiveness.

C05 190 Martin Hoyle

C05 191 C05 192 Popular Music

C05 193 Harry Connick Jnr

C05 194 Albert Hall

C05 195 SOMETIMES miracles do happen. Harry Connick's London debut last C05 196 year was a mesmerising display of all-round talent and C05 197 charisma. It scarcely seemed possible that the American entertainer C05 198 could reach those heights again. Rest assured, the opening night of C05 199 his Albert Hall season was every bit as impressive.

C05 200 Despite the standing ovation, I doubt whether it was good C05 201 enough to silence the curmudgeons in the jazz community. Connick, C05 202 they say, is just a Sinatra imitator with a cute haircut. As for C05 203 his piano playing, they will tell you that it is a bare-faced copy C05 204 of Thelonious Monk.

C05 205 He might well plead guilty on both counts: he is still in his C05 206 early twenties, and is still learning. Besides, Sinatra took out C05 207 copyright on these songs many moons ago, and nobody can recreate C05 208 the sound of Monk in full flow at the Five Spot. But equally, no C05 209 other contemporary artist brings together jazz and popular song C05 210 with as much panache as the man from New Orleans.

C05 211 What is more, he is reaching an international audience without C05 212 resorting to gimmicks or Gaultier jockstraps, but getting by with a C05 213 natty striped jacket, phenomenal stage presence and bubbling swing C05 214 orchestrations. His musical director Marc Shaiman and his young C05 215 musicians - who all deserve credit - have proved that, after all C05 216 these years, there is still nothing quite as thrilling as a C05 217 well-drilled big band.

C05 218 Connick's trio was, alas, shunted into the background on this C05 219 occasion, with a string section being added to the orchestra after C05 220 the interval. The pure jazz material was mainly confined to the C05 221 first half.

C05 222 C06 1 <#FLOB:C06\>Paula leads us a merry dance

C06 2 Marcus Berkmann

C06 3 LISTENING to Paula Abdul's new album, you realise just how much C06 4 pop music has changed in the age of MTV. By any normal standards, C06 5 Spellbound (Virgin America) isn't really a pop record at all; C06 6 it's a soundtrack, to a series of videos that probably haven't yet C06 7 been made.

C06 8 Miss Abdul, who used to be best known as a dancer and C06 9 choreographer, is a product of our times: living proof that C06 10 willpower and marketing can create success, if for some reason C06 11 talent is hard to come by.

C06 12 Her voice, for instance, is nothing very much - a nasal chirp C06 13 in the Minogue family tradition - and beside it even Madonna's C06 14 vocal limitations fade into insignificance.

C06 15 She's no songwriter, either - her occasional credits seem to be C06 16 more an act of politeness than a sign of any burning creative urge. C06 17 No, she remains primarily a dancer, and if these songs have a C06 18 strangely incomplete air, that's probably because we haven't seen C06 19 her dance to them yet.

C06 20 Whoever is calling the shots here, whether it's Miss Abdul or C06 21 various marketing men in suits, they certainly know how to put C06 22 together a commercial pop album that will sell trillions.

C06 23 Spellbound is so calculated that you can't help but admire it. C06 24 There are the acres of modish dance-pop from the latest hip C06 25 producers, in this case V. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord from The C06 26 Family Stand. There's the token Prince song, produced by the C06 27 mini-maestro under another of his silly pseudonyms (Paisley Park). C06 28 And there's the traditional Stevie Wonder guest star harmonica C06 29 solo, which not surprisingly sounds like all of his other 478,875 C06 30 guest star harmonica solos.

C06 31 And if the dance stuff doesn't work - and music fashions are as C06 32 fickle as any - there's still crossover potential, thanks to two C06 33 tracks produced by adult rock's current favourite, Don Was. These C06 34 are so utterly unlike anything on the rest of the album - real C06 35 instruments, nice tunes, no electronic percussion at all - that you C06 36 instantly assume they have been put on the album by mistake.

C06 37 But no, the sleeve notes say otherwise, and I imagine that the C06 38 millions of Miss Abdul's teeny fans who snap this up in the first C06 39 week of release will find it all deeply confusing.

C06 40 Few observers would have predicted that Natalie Cole's latest C06 41 single, a slightly ghoulish duet of Unforgettable with her C06 42 long-deceased Pa Nat King Cole, would have been the massive hit C06 43 it's become, but then good taste and the charts are rare C06 44 bedfellows. I was vaguely dreading the accompanying album, C06 45 Unforgettable (Elektra), expecting more of the same, but C06 46 happily Natalie has decided to record the rest of her father's C06 47 best-known songs by herself, with no apparent assistance from C06 48 beyond the grave.

C06 49 EVEN so, it seems a strange career move. Miss Cole has spent C06 50 more years than I can remember trying to escape her illustrious C06 51 parent's shadow, and with her last two successful albums had by and C06 52 large succeeded.

C06 53 I bow to no one in my virulent loathing of the song Miss You C06 54 Like Crazy, but it was much-loved by millions and certainly added C06 55 quite a few pennies to the Cole fortune. Unforgettable, though, is C06 56 a tame and unnecessary piece of work. The tone, predictably, is C06 57 unequivocally sentimental, and while Miss Cole's readings aren't C06 58 bad, her heart doesn't seem to be in it. I suspect she felt she C06 59 just had to get it out of the way - it was a duty that as Nat's C06 60 daughter she eventually had to bear.

C06 61 Meanwhile, James Brown's release from prison has brought the C06 62 predicted upturn in his career - wildly praised live shows, a C06 63 massive box set of his best material, and now even a new album, C06 64 Love Overdue (Scotti Bros).

C06 65 It would be nice to report that his days of reflection and C06 66 contemplation in the slammer have produced a profusion of new C06 67 ideas, but this is very much business as usual - Seventies funk, C06 68 just as Brown invented it, with no concessions to current soul C06 69 trends. It's not quite as loose-limbed as it was 15 or 20 years C06 70 ago, but then neither is Brown, who can hardly be blamed for C06 71 coasting after all he has achieved.

C06 72 Coasting this undoubtedly is, though - some songs chug, C06 73 <}_><-|>other<+|>others<}/> positively droop - and anyone who feels C06 74 that the time has come to invest in some James Brown would be C06 75 better to stick with the box set, Startime (Scotti Bros). C06 76 That's the real business.

C06 77 BEST album of the week, by about a parsec, is The Jam's C06 78 Greatest Hits (Polydor), a 16-track compilation that will C06 79 delight all those thirtysomethings who have been wondering how C06 80 white pop music went so tragically wrong.

C06 81 By today's CD standards, of course, these three-minute wonders C06 82 sound almost primitive, but their energy, attack and sheer C06 83 unbloodied tunefulness is wonderfully refreshing after the studied C06 84 mediocrity of a Paula Abdul.

C06 85 The Jam were one of pop's greatest singles bands, and this is a C06 86 timely memento of their brief heyday.

C06 87 C06 88 Nothing to make Pip squeak

C06 89 by PETER PATERSON

C06 90 THE VERY title of Great Expectations sets a challenge for C06 91 anyone filming Charles Dickens's most autobiographical of novels. C06 92 And thanks to TV, almost everyone is able to judge any new C06 93 production, if not by the book itself, then by the yardstick of C06 94 David Lean's classic 1946 version.

C06 95 The opening scene, therefore, where Pip is frightened in the C06 96 churchyard by the escaped convict Magwitch, must shock the audience C06 97 as profoundly as Finlay Currie managed in one of the cinema's most C06 98 terrifying moments.

C06 99 Alas, HTV, in association with Disney, despite having secured C06 100 the services of Hannibal Lecter, the awesome killer from the C06 101 current film shocker, The Silence Of The Lambs, failed to achieve C06 102 the heart-stopping terror that Lean managed to inject into the C06 103 scene.

C06 104 Anthony Hopkins, as Magwitch, was just too much of a designer C06 105 convict, with a fashionable scarf around his head reminiscent of C06 106 recent duels on the Centre Court at Wimbledon. The young Pip, too, C06 107 played by Martin Harvey, was prematurely well-dressed for the scion C06 108 of a poor blacksmith's household, who is only later to come into C06 109 money. There was on link, however, with the Lean film - Jean C06 110 Simmons, who played Estella all those years ago, is now the C06 111 reclusive Miss Havisham, and looking still far too attractive to be C06 112 entirely convincing.

C06 113 This first of six episodes was a decent and straightforward C06 114 effort. But it slipped up in having the carol singers deliver an C06 115 enthusiastic rendition of Away In A Manger: Dickens died in 1870, C06 116 13 years before that carol was written.

C06 117 <*_>square<*/>Building a mini-series around the Holocaust is a C06 118 good way to avoid the critics. The least they can say about a story C06 119 like For Those I Loved, which deals with this sensitive historical C06 120 event, is that its heart is in the right place.

C06 121 But that is about all that can be said for this Franco-Italian C06 122 effort, starring Michael York, and apparently aimed more at the C06 123 American market than our own.

C06 124 Last night's first episode (of three) opened with prosperous C06 125 architect Martin Gray (York), back from a business trip, being C06 126 reunited with his wife and four children at their villa on the C06 127 Riviera.

C06 128 Within minutes, however, the happy family idyll is shattered by C06 129 a forest fire in which the wife and children, plus the family dog, C06 130 die, leaving Mr Gray contemplating suicide. Urged on, however, by a C06 131 posthumous message from his wife on his tape recorder, he decides C06 132 to fulfil a promise by telling the story of his life. That takes us C06 133 to Warsaw under the Nazi occupation, with York now playing his C06 134 father, a Jewish community leader, and Jacques Penot handling the C06 135 role of the youthful Martin Gray.

C06 136 A curiosity here is that the architect Gray has an American C06 137 accent, while his father assumes Michael York's normal impeccable C06 138 English. Some of the voice dubbing of the foreign actors is also C06 139 fairly hit or miss.

C06 140 Much of the effort goes towards emphasising that some Poles - C06 141 mainly criminals - helped the Jews when they were herded into the C06 142 ghetto.

C06 143 It is said to be based on a true story, though some incidents - C06 144 for example, the ease with which young Martin commuted to and from C06 145 the ghetto, and his escape from a Gestapo hospital by feigning C06 146 typhoid - looked distinctly far-fetched.

C06 147 C06 148 From pop to the Pope

C06 149 by ROBIN SIMON

C06 150 THE major exhibition this autumn is one of the most spectacular C06 151 for a decade as the pick of the Queen's pictures go on view in the C06 152 new exhibition rooms of the Sainsbury Wing at the National C06 153 Gallery.

C06 154 The story of the Royal Collection is a tale of inept monarchs, C06 155 degenerate heirs to the throne, near-lunatics and wastrels who just C06 156 happened to have excellent taste. The show revolves around this C06 157 motley bunch, such as George III who lost the American Colonies, C06 158 his father Frederick, Prince of Wales, who lost his life through C06 159 being hit by a cricket ball, and Charles I who lost his head.

C06 160 Then there was George IV, perhaps the most aesthetically C06 161 refined of them all, but physically revolting and grotesquely C06 162 overweight. He was always debt-ridden yet hugely extravagant, C06 163 staggering drunkenly from one scandal to another.

C06 164 The size of the Royal Collection defies belief, and hitherto it C06 165 has defied every attempt to list it. Now a computerised inventory C06 166 is under way to detail the 7,000-plus paintings - contrast the C06 167 National Gallery's mere 2,500 - the half a million prints, the C06 168 3,000 miniatures, and the 30,000 Old Master drawings. And that is C06 169 before we come to the 'works of art', the quaint royal term for C06 170 everything except pictures. There are thought to be more than 2 C06 171 million of them distributed through the various palaces and houses C06 172 in the form of sculpture, porcelain, silver, clocks, tapestries and C06 173 furniture.

C06 174 AND the stunning selection of paintings on view at the National C06 175 Gallery is quite unlike the usual art show because each room is C06 176 given over to a particular royal collector or period of collecting, C06 177 from the Tudors to Victoria and Albert. The result is startling, C06 178 because we are used to the clinical and artificial divisions of C06 179 museums according to country and chronology. This exhibition C06 180 re-creates the stimulating chaos of the private collection.

C06 181 Vermeer's Music Lesson, a George III purchase, hangs near Guido C06 182 Reni's sensuous Cleopatra - a 'poor Fred' acquisition - while the C06 183 'gold-ground' 13th century triptych of Duccio, the result of Prince C06 184 Albert's advanced taste, is jumped up with Winterhalter, Landseer C06 185 and Hans Baldung Grien.

C06 186 In the earlier Tudor and Stuart rooms we sense the more C06 187 chilling use of art as propaganda. Hans Holbein was the chief of C06 188 glory of Henry VIII's court but in addition to his unforgettable C06 189 portraits he was kept hard at work enhancing the King's terrifying C06 190 image and power. And Henry VIII could be quite crude in his C06 191 approach. He persuaded an Italian artist to paint The Four C06 192 Evangelists Stoning the Pope. Today it looks hilarious but it was C06 193 commissioned in deadly seriousness.

C06 194 From the sublime to the ridiculous, and the Pop Art show at the C06 195 Royal Academy. The best thing that can be said of the 'Pop' of Roy C06 196 Lichtenstein and the rest, is that it can be fun. As such it is the C06 197 classic 20th century art form - jokey, self-indulgent and C06 198 ultimately trivial.

C06 199 It is equally hard to think of anything encouraging to say C06 200 about the Tate's exhibition of the metal constructs of Sir Anthony C06 201 Caro. Owing to a number of deaths in his profession he has C06 202 graduated to the position 'Britain's greatest living sculptor'. If C06 203 so, British sculpture is in a bad way.

C06 204 He is a barren artist. Some of his metal girders form a work C06 205 called After Olympia which is 76ft long. It is said by the artist C06 206 to be 'inspired' by the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The ploy is C06 207 typical of pretentious abstract work - the inflated title borrowing C06 208 a spurious respectability from the great art of the past.

C06 209 It will be impossible to avoid all things Japanese this autumn C06 210 when London is the setting for the Japan Festival 1991. The major C06 211 art shows are Japan And Britain at the Barbican and Visions Of C06 212 Japan at the Victoria and Albert.

C06 213 C07 1 <#FLOB:C07\>Extraordinary, Jesus or not

C07 2 Jonathan Keates

C07 3 AT THE heart of American academic life lies a singular paradox. C07 4 Outwardly the apparatus, voluminous libraries, bulging archives, C07 5 foundations, endowments, university presses, looks magnificent, C07 6 especially to the British, citizens of a country in which C07 7 openly-articulated contempt for higher education has now become an C07 8 article of faith. Yet a creeping timidity seems to paralyse its C07 9 operators, numbed by the apparently limitless prospect of causing C07 10 offence to somebody or other through the merest word or sign.

C07 11 The results of this bizarre climate of fear, created by raucous C07 12 and implacable special-interest caucuses lying in ambush along the C07 13 scholar's path, include a terminological pussyfooting whereby C07 14 familiar labels are altered for the sake of dubious peacekeeping. C07 15 One of the more preposterous examples of this involves replacing C07 16 the initials AD and BC with CE and BCE, "Common C07 17 Era" and "Before Common Era". Not merely C07 18 are both terms in themselves meaningless - "common" to whom C07 19 or what? - but by preserving the before-and-after distinction they C07 20 undermine the point of the change intended to preserve C07 21 non-Christians from sullying contact with the name of Jesus.

C07 22 William Klingaman is a convinced CE man, though ironically his C07 23 tour of the First Century AD reminds us that there was nothing C07 24 common about this era. Indeed, if one had to choose an age in which C07 25 practically every event or personality was in some way C07 26 extraordinary, this would unquestionably be it.

C07 27 A century which bundled together Ovid, Caligula, Agrippina and C07 28 St John the Divine could hardly go wrong. That even its least C07 29 attractive figures have since achieved a certain tainted glamour is C07 30 largely due to the accomplished professionalism of contemporary C07 31 historians, Tacitus, Suetonius and the rest, whose work underlines C07 32 the embarrassing truth that the historiography which gives most C07 33 pleasure is invariably the most prejudiced.

C07 34 As BC became AD, the Emperor Augustus, fretting over a C07 35 successor, recalled Tiberius from self-imposed exile in Rhodes and C07 36 sent him to lead a campaign against the fractious Germans. In Rome C07 37 itself, to appease the gods who had harried the city with floods C07 38 and food shortages, the ailing Caesar bombarded moral decadence C07 39 with a sequence of draconian decrees, criminalising adultery, C07 40 forcing men under 60 and woman under 50 to marry and produce C07 41 children on pain of forfeiting their inheritable property, and C07 42 rewarding philoprogenitive families with special privileges and tax C07 43 incentives. When Ovid dared to mock imperial hypocrisy he was C07 44 banished to Tomi on the Black Sea, where the Danube delta froze C07 45 solid in winter, icicles formed in men's beads and the stupid C07 46 Goths, laughing at his Latin, encouraged him to make poems in their C07 47 own barbarous tongue.

C07 48 More or less at the same time a small boy, whose Galilean C07 49 parents had taken him to Jerusalem for Passover, went missing in C07 50 the Temple and was found by his distraught mother sitting at the C07 51 feet of learn<*_>e-acute<*/>d rabbis, immersed in discussion of the C07 52 Law. Klingaman presents the mature Saviour as an eccentric swimmer C07 53 against the prevailing tide of Jewish militancy; not a C07 54 knife-brandishing zealot or a freedom fighter like the C07 55 die-hards of Masada, but an heir to the anti-materialist C07 56 millenarism of John the Baptist, a visionary eccentric with a C07 57 following of dropouts and no-hopers, dealing in circus-act miracles C07 58 and allegorical conundrums.

C07 59 This is one of those 'meanwhile' narratives whose chapters C07 60 lurch dramatically from one end of the world to the other, not C07 61 quite, but very nearly, a case of 'from China to Peru', with the C07 62 Chinese sections made all the more absorbing through a combination C07 63 of their sheer unfamiliarity with Klingaman's gift for lucid C07 64 exposition. There is as much heady delight to be gained from the C07 65 tale of Ma Yan, 'General Who Calms the Waves', trouncing the C07 66 Vietnamese virago Trung Trac and turning her bronze drums into a C07 67 horse, as there is from the story of the hubristic Wang Kang, whose C07 68 concubines were graded as Harmonious Ladies, Spouses, Beauties and C07 69 Attendants, but who ended up as a severed head stuck on a pole.

C07 70 Klingaman, marshalling and sifting his sources with C07 71 considerable deftness, is entertaining but never irresponsible, yet C07 72 finally there appears little point to a book of this kind save to C07 73 impress on us the significance of these impacted episodes and C07 74

dramatis personae thrown hugger-mugger into C07 75 a hundred-year span. His retelling of the catastrophic annihilation C07 76 of Quintilus Varus's<&|>sic! legions by Germanic tribesmen in the C07 77 forest of Westphalia is as graphic as the account, several chapters C07 78 later, Boadicea's revolt, yet neither achieves the austere C07 79 detachment and lethal suavity of tone for which we willingly return C07 80 to the Roman historians. No conclusions are drawn, we are required C07 81 to grasp no meaningful parallels. As the sort of history which C07 82 could be reliably offered to an inquiring teenager, The First C07 83 Century works splendidly, but something more striking is C07 84 needed to bring home to us the peculiar uncommonness with which our C07 85 Common Era began.

C07 86 C07 87 Post-revolution treasure trove

C07 88 Music

C07 89 Nicholas Kenyon on a Russian spring at the South Bank.

C07 90 THERE is something ironic in the South Bank centre launching C07 91 its Russian Spring festival at a time when a chilly C07 92 winter is enveloping Russia's artistic life. The possibility of the C07 93 strongly characterful developments of the past few years being C07 94 thrown away by economic deprivation and political turmoils is all C07 95 too real.

C07 96 Increasingly, however, Russian artists and composers are C07 97 turning their eyes to Western Europe as their main source of C07 98 activity and support. Freedom to travel combined with lack of C07 99 opportunity at home means that there is plenty of very important C07 100 work for our promoters to explore for the first time. The C07 101 Huddersfield and Almeida festivals have already made successful C07 102 presentations of the work of younger Russian composers, and there C07 103 has been the astounding Schnittke festival which with the artists C07 104 of the calibre of Gidon Kremer and Yuri Bashmet, drew enthusiastic C07 105 crowds to the Barbican.

C07 106 Now, the South Bank has assembled its own festival in which, C07 107 however, the younger generation features less strongly than might C07 108 have been expected. Later in the month, there will be new works C07 109 from Elena Firsova and Dimitri Smirnov, as well as the long-overdue C07 110 first London performance of Sofia Gubaidulina's fine C07 111 Offertorium.

C07 112 But the emphasis in this springtime festival falls much more C07 113 heavily on those who awakened Russian music from its romantic C07 114 slumbers after the revolution: Stravinsky, Prokofiev (whose C07 115 centenary is conveniently subsumed in the celebrations), and the C07 116 shadowy figure of Nikolai Roslavets, whose achievement has been C07 117 forgotten for half a century.

C07 118 In the festival's opening weekend there was even Tchaikovsky, C07 119 as the wellspring of the Russian romantic soul, ensuring good C07 120 houses for a pair of concerts that also featured Schnittke (from C07 121 the London Philharmonic) and Denisov (from the BBC Symphony C07 122 Orchestra).

C07 123 Tchaikovsky's neurotically intense achievement in uniting C07 124 symphonic form with nationalist sentiment can scarcely be C07 125 overestimated in the history of Russian music, and indeed one C07 126 feature of this series will be to emphasise the continuity of that C07 127 folk music-based tradition right through Stravinsky's own spring - C07 128 though a little Rimsky-Korsakov would have made the point even C07 129 better.

C07 130 Edison Denisov is fascinating among contemporary Russian C07 131 composers, a mild but forceful godfather figure whose house has C07 132 provided a treasure trove of scores, tapes, records and discussions C07 133 both for the younger generation and for visitors from abroad. But I C07 134 have never quite felt that his music lives up to his undeniably C07 135 positive influence.

C07 136 Peinture, which was the only work new to this country in C07 137 the opening weekend at the Festival Hall, was more than two decades C07 138 old, and although its sound patterns were woven with evident skill C07 139 and a wonderful ear for passing colour, it was difficult to feel C07 140 that at this point it had anything major to say.

C07 141 The BBC Symphony Orchestra played responsively for Andrew Davis C07 142 (they also shone last Thursday, at the Festival Hall in a C07 143 convincing revival of Hugh Wood's passionate 1982 Symphony). And C07 144 everyone was brought to life by Dimitri Sitkovetsky's razor-sharp C07 145 account of Shostakovich's Second Violin Concerto. But even C07 146 Sitkovetsky's ideal mixture of deep tone and rhythmic incisiveness C07 147 did not change my feeling that this is one of the most C07 148 unsatisfactory and unconvincing of Shostakovich's pieces, where a C07 149 clever and actively decorative style covers up a depressingly blank C07 150 centre.

C07 151 In a varied week, it was the Orchestra of the Age of C07 152 Englightenment's revival of Beethoven's complete incidental C07 153 music to Egmont, at the Elizabeth Hall, that lingered in the C07 154 mind: superbly resourceful music which we rarely hear because of C07 155 the awkwardness of finding a concert format within which to perform C07 156 it.

C07 157 Which is not to say that the solution adopted here, of a C07 158 narrator reading a text-book version of Goethe's plot assembled C07 159 with all the flair of an entry for Grove's Dictionary, C07 160 really did the trick. But Nancy Argenta's singing of the songs was C07 161 so delightful and the overall quality of the dark, brooding music C07 162 so high that the project was a triumph.

C07 163 In the short melodrama, where speech is heard over music, C07 164 Goethe's own poetic language was briefly sensed, and one could see C07 165 what attracted Mozart as well as Beethoven to this unique C07 166 expressive form of speech-and-music. Mozart at one point, indeed, C07 167 suggested that he would always compose melodrama instead of C07 168 recitative: he never did anything so radical, but the melodramas he C07 169 composed for the unfinished Zaide, recently heard in the C07 170 Mozart 200 series at the Barbican, were powerfully inventive.

C07 171 The orchestra of the Age of Englightenment, playing here under C07 172 the impassioned direction of Ivan Fischer, were on exciting form. C07 173 Monica Huggett, risking a great deal by tackling Beethoven's C07 174 technically advanced Violin concerto on a period instrument, drew C07 175 out all the French-inspired delicacy and refinement of the work.

C07 176 Darting pairs of wind instruments, an eloquent bassoon, horns C07 177 chirruping under the bouncing violin lines: the chamber style of C07 178 the performance seemed exactly right for the venue.

C07 179 This is not one of Beethoven's heaven-storming pieces, but one C07 180 directly inspired by the then new achievement of the French violin C07 181 school, and this performance matched that character very C07 182 accurately.

C07 183 I didn't enjoy the Old Vic Carmen Jones quite as much C07 184 as my colleague Michael Coveney, though I must say I was pleasantly C07 185 surprised by the piece itself: clever orchestrations, splendidly C07 186 played by the pit band under that by no means negligible conductor C07 187 Henry Lewis, and ingenious reworkings of the lyrics to fit Bizet's C07 188 ever-fresh music. But the production found its punch only in the C07 189 choreography, and the characterisations were lacking in grit: C07 190 indeed the whole story line fatally sentimentalises Bizet's C07 191 opera.

C07 192 From the first cast of the two which will share the run, there C07 193 was high-class singing from Wilhelmina Fernandez as Carmen and C07 194 Damon Evans, though the latter was a milk-and-water C07 195 Jos<*_>e-acute<*/>. As a son-of-Porgy and Bess, the show C07 196 seemed less than substantial. And is amplification, particularly of C07 197 such a crude nature, really necessary in such a perfect little C07 198 theatre as the Old Vic? Electronic intrusion between singer and C07 199 audience is going to become an ever greater issue as opera and C07 200 musicals become inextricably intertwined.

C07 201 C07 202 Caribbean orange juice

C07 203 First novels

C07 204 Boyd Tonkin

C07 205 DISENCHANTMENT came quickly to the Caribbean diaspora. As early C07 206 as 1954, George Lamming's novel The Emigrants gave a C07 207 voice to West Indian dismay at the gap between the bleak streets of C07 208 the real England and the imperial fairyland conjured up in tropical C07 209 schoolrooms. Elean Thomas, writing about the same period and C07 210 process in The Last Room (Virago, pounds13.99), has her C07 211 heroine smuggle two Seville oranges from Jamaica through customs at C07 212 Heathrow. Once in Birmingham, the bitter-sweet fruit C07 213 "shrivelled up, lost their juice, became crisp, dry and C07 214 hard".

C07 215 In the eyes of her clan, bright young Putus will shut the door C07 216 on the "last room" of their colonial prison. Though C07 217 her mother insists that "you wi be de Barton who true lef' C07 218 slavery back-a-door", emigration pushes her fast into a C07 219 deepening nightmare of hardship and insult. Her own daughter C07 220 Icylane, fostered in a Jamaica where reggae and tourism have ousted C07 221 cane-cutting and rural folkways, makes the trip to England to save C07 222 Putus from a freezing bedsit and a mind racked by taunting inner C07 223 voices.

C07 224 'Icy' hangs out with Rastafarian musicians and has a skin C07 225 "black as midnight"; her mother despises her C07 226 "lowclass" Jamaican neighbours and remembers the royal C07 227 visits of her childhood.

C07 228 C08 1 <#FLOB:C08\>Nothing left to win

C08 2 Trials of an Expert Witness:

C08 3 Tales of Clinical Neurology and the Law

C08 4 by Harold L Klawans

C08 5 Anne Smith

C08 6 Poor Mrs Sherman. She went to hospital for plastic surgery to C08 7 have an ulcer removed from her ear. The anaesthetist included C08 8 morphine in her pre-med. She suffered from emphysema. Morphine and C08 9 emphysema do not mix. By the time the porter had wheeled her to the C08 10 operating theatre and waved her a blithe goodbye, she was dead. A C08 11 nurse noticed. Sherman was resuscitated. But her lungs could not C08 12 cope and the task of keeping her alive was passed over to the C08 13 respirator.

C08 14 The hospital re-trained its porters so that they might more C08 15 readily spot the difference when the odd patient died on the C08 16 trolley - all but the one who had failed to notice that poor C08 17 Sherman had wheezed her last. He was untrainable, so they made him C08 18 a message-boy. One day Sherman asked for a television set in her C08 19 room. This same porter delivered it while she was asleep. Quietly, C08 20 he pulled out one of the plugs beside her bed and replaced it with C08 21 the television plug. In doing so, he cut off her respirator. Poor C08 22 Sherman died after all. Her family's claim against the hospital was C08 23 settled out of court.

C08 24 Trials of an Expert Witness covers 19 cases such as C08 25 this from America, each one as fascinating and alarming as the C08 26 last. Against Richardson's Law, which states that every doctor is C08 27 ready to swear that every other doctor is an excellent physician, C08 28 Klawans insists on high standards in his profession: C08 29 "Belief in the right of a patient to have legal recourse C08 30 for an injury resulting from malpractice is like belief in C08 31 God."

C08 32 The trouble is, that when the time comes to sue in these cases, C08 33 you have already lost. As did Sherman, or Mrs Greengrass, who was C08 34 left waiting for the obstetrician who had prescribed glucose drips C08 35 to keep her going until he was free; he went home and forgot her, C08 36 and she became a vegetable with brain damage caused by sodium C08 37 deficiency. Or Tom Thompson III who had a tumour which made him C08 38 lame, impotent and incontinent, but who was diagnosed as having C08 39 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. By the time the correct diagnosis C08 40 was made and the benign tumour removed, he was left lame, C08 41 incontinent and impotent for life.

C08 42 "Science moves forward," is Klawans's comment C08 43 to a lawyer who asks him to repeat his successful testimony that an C08 44 accident can precipitate multiple sclerosis; they thought it could C08 45 then, they know it cannot now. He does not go into the ethics of C08 46 this; it's all in the game, he says. That takes a kind of courage C08 47 as does his examination of Ezra Pound's case, inspired by a poem by C08 48 Dannie Abse, Pound was not mad, just "crazy like a C08 49 fox".

C08 50 Nor was the man who shot the gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk, C08 51 who claimed to have been driven temporarily nuts by the C08 52 overconsumption of Twinkie bars. Unlike the man who murdered in his C08 53 sleep, who was deemed to be irresponsible through "sleep C08 54 drunkenness", a theory borne out by the case of Colonel C08 55 Culpeper, who shot a guardsman in similar circumstances in 1686.

C08 56 Although the human factor is clearly present in all these C08 57 cases, either in the attitude and behaviour of the patient or in C08 58 the lawyers' cynical manipulations, it is absent from Klawan's book C08 59 in the most important way. A science moves forward, cases cease to C08 60 be persons. A little fleshing-out round the neurology would have C08 61 gone a long way.

C08 62 C08 63 Festivals blessed by mixed Marriages

C08 64 Hugh Canning on two traditional but entirely different Figaro C08 65 productions

C08 66 The Mozart year gets into full swing as the summer opera C08 67 festivals burst into action. Last week Glyndebourne opened its C08 68 first all-Mozart season since the 1956 bicentenary of its favourite C08 69 composer's birth, appropriately with a revival of the first opera C08 70 ever performed there in 1934, Le nozze di Figaro, this time in Sir C08 71 Peter Hall's 1989 production. This month, too, Jonathan Miller C08 72 unveiled his new Figaro at the Vienna Festival, to rapturous C08 73 applause and high critical praise.

C08 74 Miller is long acquainted with the inhabitants of the castle of C08 75 Aguas Frescas near Seville, since he directed C08 76 Beaumarchais's<&|>sic! comedy for the National Theatre at the Old C08 77 Vic in 1974 and his elegant, cool, very French production of C08 78 Mozart's opera has become a staple of the repertoire at the London C08 79 Coliseum. His latest thoughts on the Mozart opera make a C08 80 fascinating comparison with those of Hall.

C08 81 This Glyndebourne revival is restaged by Stephen Medcalf, C08 82 producer of the Opera 80 Magic Flute I wrote about last week, and C08 83 though there is certainly more theatrical life in it now, it lacks C08 84 the close focus in the complex relationship within the Almaviva C08 85 household which mark Miller's staging.

C08 86 Where the Hall production suffers from lazy, commonplace C08 87 naturalism, in John Gunter's insipid and already tatty-looking C08 88 sets, the new Miller mise-en-sc<*_>e-grave<*/>nes has a C08 89 brilliant young designer in Peter J Davison, who transports us from C08 90 the down-at-heel backstairs milieu to the Countess's boudoir with C08 91 magical use of a revolve. Later, in the middle of Act IV, Davison C08 92 takes us instantly from the great hall to the exterior of the C08 93 palace for the garden scene.

C08 94 Both transformations are stunning coups de C08 95 th<*_>e-acute<*/><*_>a-circ<*/>tre, whereby Figaro C08 96 becomes the two-part opera in four acts its musical structure C08 97 suggests it is and the drama moves inexorably towards the great C08 98 crisis of the denouement. Not only is Davison's set a miracle of C08 99 engineering, but it looks ravishing, inspired by the bourgeois C08 100 painting of Chardin, rather than the cut-price Boucher on offer at C08 101 Glyndebourne.

C08 102 Miller underplays the revolutionary aspect of the drama - as C08 103 Mozart and Da Ponte necessarily did in order to get the opera on at C08 104 all in 1786 - so there is no blunderbuss-brandishing C08 105 peasantry bursting into the place as at Glyndebourne. Instead, C08 106 Miller, aided by Davison's sets and the beautifully detailed, C08 107 historically researched costume designs of James Acheson, evokes an C08 108 ancien regime not yet in terminal decline, but C08 109 getting there. The Countess's pinkwashed walls need a new coat of C08 110 paint, the plasterwork is crumbling and the old social distinctions C08 111 are gradually breaking down. The older members of the Count's C08 112 retinue are deferential, while the young girls know and exploit his C08 113 sexual proclivities. Susanna and Barbarina are not the only women C08 114 who look for social advancement.

C08 115 By concentrating on the interplay of the characters without any C08 116 specific dialectic or concept, Miller paradoxically underlines the C08 117 eternal modernity of Figaro. In Vienna's intimate Theater an der C08 118 Wien, the polemical German director Ruth Berghaus was in the C08 119 audience, and she must have been dismayed by Miller's traditional C08 120 approach. But it revealed more about the psychology of the C08 121 characters than any intellectual production I have seen. The C08 122 Viennese audience was overjoyed, too, not to have any ideology C08 123 rammed down their throats in their favourite opera.

C08 124 There is not much ideology behind the Hall show, but neither is C08 125 there Miller's illumination of character and situation. In C08 126 retrospect, I wish Miller could have had the Glyndebourne cast, C08 127 which has a mature and familiar Figaro in Alan Opie, but otherwise C08 128 very young principals, too young in the Case of Susan Bickley's C08 129 Marcellina who could never be this Figaro's mother.

C08 130 In Vienna, Miller had grand opera stars for the Almavivas, the C08 131 blossoming American soprano Cheryl Studer and veteran Italian bass, C08 132 Ruggero Raimondi, and however effectively they suppressed their C08 133 super-egos in favour of a close-knit ensemble, Glyndebourne's C08 134 youthful Count and Countess, Jeffrey Black and Gunnel Bohmann, were C08 135 both vocally and histrionically more affecting. Bohmann has vastly C08 136 improved her form since the opening night in 1989 and presents the C08 137 Countess, rightly in my view, as a young wife deeply anxious about C08 138 the state of her marriage, rather than the tragedy queen of many C08 139 large-house productions.

C08 140 Studer steers clear of that, but only just, and she sings with C08 141 an amplitude of tone and breadth of phrasing turning her two big C08 142 numbers into show-stoppers. Vocally, Raimondi's Count was a C08 143 big surprise, for his large Italianate bass-baritone can sound C08 144 lugubrious in Verdi let alone Mozart, but here he was elegance C08 145 itself and he characterised the noble skirt-lifter as a frustrated, C08 146 satyr-like buffoon rather than the glowering villain suggested by C08 147 his recording of the part.

C08 148 Both companies field fine Cherubinos: Gabrielle Sima in Vienna C08 149 is a charming soprano paggio in the Jurinac mould who deserves to C08 150 be seen at Covent Garden, while Glyndebourne's Marianne Rohrholm, C08 151 though not so well-endowed vocally, is a real charmer. The C08 152 high-light of the production for me is the moment she scarpers when C08 153 Barbarina suggests marriage.

C08 154 Both productions are, quite properly, dominated by their Figaro C08 155 and Susanna, and it is a measure of the opera's infinite variety C08 156 that both couples are entirely different and both work C08 157 triumphantly. Vienna pairs a fine young Italian Figaro, Lucio C08 158 Gallo, who will sing in the Covent Garden production next season, C08 159 with the still youthful-looking, but seasoned Susanna of Marie C08 160 McLaughlin, while at Glyndebourne the reverse is the case.

C08 161 If I reserve special praise, it is for the quite wonderful C08 162 Susanna of Alison Hagley at Glyndebourne, deservedly promoted from C08 163 Barbarina in 1989. Hagley registers every nuance of da Ponte's C08 164 detailed expression marks - "ironically", C08 165 "maliciously" and so on - and deploys a creamy lyric C08 166 soprano which suggests the promise of the young Kiri Te Kanawa. Her C08 167 Act IV aria was the crowning moment of her performance as her C08 168 soprano intertwined erotically with the wind soloists of the Age of C08 169 Enlightenment orchestra.

C08 170 It is in the orchestral performance where the two productions C08 171 go entirely separate ways. At Glyndebourne, Andrew Davis conducts C08 172 period instruments in a fast and furiously theatrical account of C08 173 the opera, while in Vienna Claudio Abbado conducts the luxuriously C08 174 upholstered State Opera Orchestra (alias the Vienna Philharmonic). C08 175 Abbado is far from stately, though, and his brilliant conducting of C08 176 the two great finales recalled the inexorable momentum of the C08 177 classic 1956 Erich Kleiber recording with the same band. At C08 178 Glyndebourne, Davis seems to have solved all the problems Simon C08 179 Rattle encountered when the production was new. This bodes well for C08 180 the new Rattle/Trevor Nunn Cosi fan tutte which opened on Friday C08 181 and about which I will write next week.

C08 182 C08 183 Murder, melodrama and mistaken identity

C08 184 IAIN JOHNSTONE on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and the C08 185 week's releases

C08 186 It was perhaps fortuitous for Tom Stoppard that the film of his C08 187 1967 play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Curzon C08 188 West End et al, Pg), was delayed by Sean Connery's withdrawal from C08 189 the project. A working knowledge of Hamlet is essential to one's C08 190 enjoyment of the comedy, and until this year movie-buffs C08 191 had to rely on Laurence Olivier's version, in which Rosencrantz and C08 192 Guildenstern are absent. Fortunately, Mel Gibson has now ridden to C08 193 the rescue and the plot point has been restored, with the C08 194 Wittenberg students unwittingly carrying Hamlet's death warrant to C08 195 England.

C08 196 In Gibson's Hamlet, as in nearly every version since the C08 197 Stoppard play, the expression of royal gratitude to the pair - King C08 198 Claudius: "Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle C08 199 Guildenstern"; Queen Gertrude: "Thanks, C08 200 Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz" - has the emphasis of C08 201 the consort correcting the monarch, although there is no stage C08 202 direction to that effect. Gertrude could well have reversed the C08 203 names out of pure politeness.

C08 204 But confusion of identity is the precise target of Stoppard's C08 205 humour. In the title roles he has even cast two actors, Gary Oldman C08 206 and Tim Roth, who could almost pass for one other. Not even C08 207 Rosencrantz is sure whether he is Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, so C08 208 how can the pair expect anyone else to distinguish them? What both C08 209 do know is that they provide itinerant irrelevance. Hamlet greets C08 210 them warmly as good friends but shares not a single student C08 211 reminiscence with them; only Rosencrantz's retort to his request C08 212 for news - "None, my lord, but that the world's grown C08 213 honest" - suggests there might be ironic depths to the man, C08 214 which Shakespeare was unprepared to plumb.

C08 215 Stoppard has taken liberties with his own work to put in on C08 216 film, but it still gets off to an uncertain start. The gag about C08 217 the spun coin always landing heads-up builds brilliantly on the C08 218 stage but fails to find the same crescendo in the film.

C08 219 C09 1 <#FLOB:C09\>All is far from true

C09 2 THEATRE

C09 3 John Gross on 'Henry VIII'

C09 4 'Sailor Beware!' and

C09 5 'Black Poppies'

C09 6 HENRY VIII was offered to its first audience as a docudrama. C09 7 Its subtitle, boldly underlined in the new production at the C09 8 Chichester Festival Theatre, is All is True.

C09 9 Whatever the private thoughts of spectators at the time, today C09 10 it is almost impossible not to murmur, "Oh no, it C09 11 isn't." You do not have to be much of a historian to C09 12 recognise that the story has been tidied up, and that the king in C09 13 particular was altogether less amiable a character than he is shown C09 14 as being.

C09 15 To the extent that the play is a documentary, on the other C09 16 hand, it has the untidiness and discontinuity of life itself. True, C09 17 it also has a recurrent theme in the fall from greatness - C09 18 exemplified first by the Duke of Buckingham, then by Queen C09 19 Katherine, then by Wolsey - but it still remains irredeemably C09 20 episodic.

C09 21 Then there is the question of mixed authorship. For over a C09 22 hundred years scholars have assigned whole scenes and chunks of C09 23 scenes to John Fletcher rather than Shakespeare (including, C09 24 disconcertingly, Wolsey's famous farewell speeches after this C09 25 fall). No one can know for certain whether they are right; but if C09 26 they are, it would help to explain why the play is notable for C09 27 rhetoric rather than true free-flowing poetry.

C09 28 Not the most rewarding work in the Shakespeare canon, then (in C09 29 so far as it belongs there at all). Yet given even a halfway decent C09 30 production, it can hold the stage surprisingly well. It has plenty C09 31 of dramatic pace, it offers some fine opportunities to actors, and C09 32 much of the rhetoric is at any rate rhetoric of a very high C09 33 order.

C09 34 "Halfway decent" just about sums up Ian Judge's C09 35 Chichester production, although at times it is a good deal better C09 36 than that. The best thing in it is Tony Britton's Wolsey. He makes C09 37 a powerful impression as the proud, impatient politician, and in C09 38 spite of shouting one or two lines that would be better left C09 39 unshouted he extracts most of the majestic pathos from the farewell C09 40 speeches. (Can they really be by Fletcher?)

C09 41 The other principals are disappointing. Dorothy Tutin is good C09 42 at conveying Katherine's flashes of anger, but not her more C09 43 important qualities of melancholy and resignation. Keith Michell's C09 44 Henry is much less formidable and four-square than one might have C09 45 expected.

C09 46 Elsewhere Benjamin Whitrow makes a credible Cranmer, and Fiona C09 47 Fullerton has some eloquent silences as Anne Boleyn. But the Tudor C09 48 pageantry ought to be more full-blooded than it is (Mr Judge has C09 49 not been able to resist putting some of the minor characters into C09 50 modern double-breasted suits), and so should the production as a C09 51 whole.

C09 52 The one thing wrong with Sailor, Beware! is its C09 53 title. It suggests (to my mind, at least) falling trousers, seaside C09 54 postcards and hastily concealed bimbos. But although Philip King C09 55 and Falkland Cary's 1955 success contains plenty of comic C09 56 exaggeration, it is far from being a farce. You care too much about C09 57 the characters and their predicaments for that.

C09 58 In the right-hand corner, Emma Hornett, an amazing C09 59 fire-breathing dragon of a wife and mother, about to become a C09 60 mother-in-law. In the left-hand corner, a downtrodden husband, a C09 61 pretty daughter (though just occasionally she sounds like a chip C09 62 off the old block), a perky sailor, a sailor's pawky Scottish C09 63 shipmate, a sexy niece ... just about everyone else, in fact - but C09 64 will their combined forces prove a match for her?

C09 65 In the end the play comes down on the side of marriage and the C09 66 family, but it is a close-run thing. It is a very funny play - C09 67 partly because of the author's sheer craftsmanship, but still more C09 68 because our sympathies are involved. Many of the laughs are fuelled C09 69 not perhaps by pity and terror but by something very close to anger C09 70 and alarm.

C09 71 The new revival at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, directed by C09 72 Peter James, is a triumph. That means, inevitably, that the chief C09 73 honours have to go to Jane Freeman as Mrs Hornett. She is appalling C09 74 and enraging but you can never quite dislike her. There is always C09 75 just room, as there ought to be, for a change of heart.

C09 76 The rest of the cast, from Sheila Steafel as a dotty C09 77 sister-in-law to Richard Howard as vintage vicar, are excellent, C09 78 and the whole production spins along with assurance and verve. It C09 79 would surely do well if it transferred to the West End.

C09 80 In Black Poppies, at the Theatre Royal, Stratford C09 81 East, a group of actors take turns at recounting the experiences of C09 82 blacks in the British armed services from the Second World War C09 83 until more or less today. Their monologues are based on interviews C09 84 - edited but otherwise unaltered - that were conducted with a group C09 85 of ex-servicemen in 1987. All is true.

C09 86 All is also remarkably interesting. The individual narratives C09 87 are full of character, humour, sharply defined detail; and you C09 88 never doubt their authenticity.

C09 89 The older men tell a tale of a time when colour differences C09 90 were submerged - up to a point - on account of the war. Only C09 91 afterwards, when they had to look for jobs and lodgings, did C09 92 disenchantment set in.

C09 93 Since then, many blacks have found more security or opportunity C09 94 in the forces than they were able to find in civilian life. But all C09 95 of them, even the successful ones, know that racial prejudice is C09 96 never very far away. They have all learned, in the phrase one of C09 97 them clings to, that they have got to be 'atmosphere-sensitive' if C09 98 they are going to survive.

C09 99 Not that there is anything unduly repetitious about their C09 100 stories. Their motives for joining up varied a good deal; so did C09 101 their circumstances once they were in, and their reactions.

C09 102 As though to underline the point, one episode interweaves the C09 103 reflections of a regular who enlisted in the 1950s - pipe-smoking, C09 104 fond of long words, stolidly respectable - with those of a C09 105 street-smart young recruit from present-day Brixton. It holds the C09 106 balance very fairly between the two of them.

C09 107 We also hear the sad story of a gifted bugler who ran up C09 108 against the unwritten law of 'thus far and no further': there comes C09 109 a point beyond which, if you are black, you have very little chance C09 110 of being promoted. There are some unforgettable glimpses of service C09 111 in Northern Ireland, and a horrifying account (though it has its C09 112 exhilarating moments) of a black military policeman standing up to C09 113 a pathological brute of a white NCO.

C09 114 You are never less than absorbed by these reminiscences, and C09 115 often transfixed. And the actors - all black, of course - are so C09 116 good that it is hard to realise that you are not listening to the C09 117 men themselves.

C09 118 C09 119 A threadbare club tie

C09 120 ART

C09 121 John McEwen visits the new Irish Museum for Modern Art

C09 122 THERE is an invigorating sense of civic pride in Dublin, as C09 123 well there might be in a city which boasts - quite apart from C09 124 anything else - the richest and most various stucco work of any in C09 125 Europe; and nothing could symbolise it more dramatically than the C09 126 transformation of its finest 17th-century building, the old Royal C09 127 Hospital at Kilmainham, into the country's first museum of modern C09 128 art, officially declared open by Mr Charles Haughey, the Taoiseach, C09 129 yesterday.

C09 130 Ever since New York invented the idea of a Museum of Modern Art C09 131 60 years ago, this oddly contradictory notion for an institution C09 132 has taken hold, so that to have one has become a mark of a C09 133 country's superiority. Ireland joins an elite club with the opening C09 134 of IMMA, something of which Mr Haughey, who has pushed the idea C09 135 through with the high-handedness of a Mitterrand, is well aware. No C09 136 wonder Declan McGonagle, late of our own ICA and now the museum's C09 137 first director, regards it as his first task to demonstrate that we C09 138 can now be part of an international family of museums.

C09 139 But will it work? In Dublin where, as one participant put it, C09 140 "confidentiality is a secret told to one person at a C09 141 time", there is plenty of back-chat for and against.

C09 142 The choice and conservation of the building are predictably C09 143 controversial. The position of Kilmainham, one and a half miles C09 144 from the city centre, would seem to be the most reasonable of these C09 145 complaints. This inconvenience is something it has in common with C09 146 its Scottish counterpart in Edinburgh - but in the case of the C09 147 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art being in the sticks does C09 148 not seem to have mattered too much. If a programme is good enough C09 149 the public will follow.

C09 150 IMMA - a copy of Les Invalides in Paris - is itself an C09 151 architectural spectacle: four noble ranges surrounding a square C09 152 courtyard, its grass now removed in favour of gravel to give a C09 153 suitable parade-ground effect, with a continuous internal arcade C09 154 linking the three residential sides of the building.

C09 155 Certainly it has been restored with style. The initial job, C09 156 costing pounds21 million, was finished seven years ago when a new C09 157 role for the building had yet to be decided; then in 1990 a further C09 158 pounds900,000 was granted to turn it into a place more suitable for C09 159 the varied requirements of a modern art museum.

C09 160 Traditionalists may shudder at the creation of a new entrance - C09 161 particularly of the staircase inside, made of glass and iron C09 162 girders - but it does declare the change of use. Elsewhere the most C09 163 has been made of a restrictive plan (again reminiscent of the C09 164 Edinburgh gallery) of corridors and small inter-connecting rooms. C09 165 In the broad and continuous corridor of the first floor and the C09 166 rooms it served (where the old soldiers once slept two to a bed), C09 167 Declan McGonagle has pieced together an opening show more in the C09 168 form of a menu than a spectacle.

C09 169 An art student in the early 1970s, he remains true to many of C09 170 the artists and contradictory attitudes of that time. Thus he is at C09 171 pains to be a man of the people - to show "the extent to C09 172 which an artist merges with a society" - while confronting C09 173 us for the most part with minimal and conceptual works of an C09 174 essentially dehumanised and autocratic kind - most of them C09 175 demanding a king's ransom of space to make their visual point.

C09 176 Kingpin of his selection is characteristically the artist who C09 177 most personified this late Modernist/late Marxist confusion - the C09 178 late Joseph Beuys. He made the fatuous statement that, C09 179 "Everyone is an artist"; meanwhile becoming the C09 180 hottest commercial property in the art world himself by exploiting C09 181 the credulity of the young and the cynicism of the market. His very C09 182 touch was enough to impose a price on an object, his (in this C09 183 instance) Bits and Pieces, selected during visits to C09 184 Ireland and now reverentially displayed in a series of cabinets, C09 185 the secular equivalent of holy relics.

C09 186 And yet if, in Beuysian mode, McGonagle is most committed to C09 187 the gobbledygook of engaging "with artists and non-artists C09 188 as equal participants in an ongoing cultural process, not as C09 189 producer and consumer", he is also understandably anxious C09 190 to demonstrate that this does not mean that IMMA cannot be all C09 191 things to all men. To placate traditionalists he has secured the C09 192 loan of some 20th-century masters from Holland (a token Picasso, C09 193 Mondrian, Dubuffet, etc<&|>sic!), and a minimalist collection (Judd C09 194 Andre, Ellsworth Kelly et al) from Germany.

C09 195 He has found a place for Jack B. Yeats and the collection (the C09 196 selection here mostly of Op Art and other 1960s styles) of a C09 197 contemporary Irishman, Gordon Lambert. He has begged, borrowed and C09 198 bought a selection of things by a motley of 50 middle-aged artists. C09 199 (Richard Long and Georg Baselitz among the better known). He has C09 200 included three young and Irish artists-in-residence; a video C09 201 programme; a community arts project. But in his anxiety to please C09 202 he hides, or exposes (depending on your view) the problems he C09 203 faces.

C09 204 Chief of these is lack of cash. The State has given IMMA an C09 205 initial pounds250,000 for purchases, with the promise of an annual C09 206 purchasing grant of pounds50,000 in future; so hopes of a permanent C09 207 collection, particularly in a country which makes no tax C09 208 concessions to collectors, are unrealistic. C09 209 C10 1 <#FLOB:C10\>Bio-degradable scandal

C10 2 Curtain

C10 3 by Michael Korda

C10 4 Sheridan Morley

C10 5 Michael Korda is an American publisher of considerable C10 6 expertise and distinction whose own writings form an uneasy pattern C10 7 over the past 20 years. His first titles, always followed by C10 8 <}_><-|>a<+|>an<}/> exclamation mark, were yuppie handbooks for the C10 9 1970s: Power! was one. Success! the other. Then he wrote Charmed C10 10 Lives, an admirable history of his own flamboyant, movie-mogul C10 11 Uncle Alex, before inventing, in the middle 1980s, the C10 12 'bio-novel'.

C10 13 This grew out of Charmed Lives in that it chronicled the exotic C10 14 life and career of his aunt, Merle Oberon, who was Sir Alex's C10 15 discovery, mistress, wife and star, but it was never conceived as a C10 16 biography. As a novel, Queenie conveniently freed Korda from any C10 17 problems with factual accuracy or libel suits. Everybody knew C10 18 Queenie was really Auntie Merle, in celluloid thin disguise, but C10 19 nobody cared enough about her memory to object to her nephew's C10 20 repackaging it.

C10 21 Now Queenie has spawned Curtain, Korda's latest bio-novel, C10 22 and one presumably now making an only-ritual appearance in hardback C10 23 before finding its natural home on the airport carrousels. But, C10 24 British audiences are going to have rather more of a problem with C10 25 it than with Queenie: for the principal characters of Curtain are C10 26 blatantly and unmistakably 'inspired by' Laurence Olivier and C10 27 Vivien Leigh. Several key episodes are meticulously modelled on C10 28 sequences in their many biographies, from the catastrophic Romeo C10 29 and Juliet tour of America through to Olivier's wartime seasons at C10 30 the Vic, and the accusations by Kenneth Tynan that Larry was C10 31 sacrificing his stage career to Viv's mental instability.

C10 32 The trouble with all of this is that Korda is excellently C10 33 placed to separate Olivier fact from Olivier fiction: his uncle was C10 34 their most frequent movie producer (both were under contract to C10 35 him), Korda junior was Olivier's American publisher, and edited the C10 36 Anne Edwards biography by Vivien, which was the first to uncover C10 37 her clinical depressions. It is indeed more than possible that C10 38 Korda's central plot-hypothesis - that Olivier had a brief and C10 39 guilt-ridden homosexual affair with Danny Kaye - can be sustained C10 40 by a line or two in the Olivier autobiography where he wrote of C10 41 "a passionate involvement with the one male with whom C10 42 sexual dalliance has not been loathsome to contemplate."

C10 43 But is this book, a few months after Olivier's death, really C10 44 what his widow and children, or indeed Vivien Leigh's surviving C10 45 daughter, best deserve by way of a publishing memorial from a C10 46 writer whose family have made more than a little money out of the C10 47 Oliviers over the years? Especially when elements of truth are C10 48 couched in a plot of such melodrama (a suicide and a murder and a C10 49 knighthood all in the last couple of pages) that not even Korda C10 50 senior would have dared film it?

C10 51 This is grave-robbery of an especially unpleasant nature, a C10 52 tacky little tale given spurious interest and credibility by the C10 53 mixing of undeniable fact into a pudding of pure fiction.

C10 54 What Korda has written may well be the manuscript he would have C10 55 yearned to receive from Olivier by way of autobiography, but that C10 56 doesn't guarantee any of its authenticity. You have only to compare C10 57 the way Olivier's dead peers, Richardson and Rattigan (all safely C10 58 beyond libel) appear in the book with the carefully gloved C10 59 treatment given to Gielgud and others still around, to realise the C10 60 extent of the opportunism employed here by a writer and publisher C10 61 who once knew more than a little about the boundaries of good C10 62 taste. Korda is fast becoming the Bret Easton Ellis of the C10 63 nostalgia trade.

C10 64 C10 65 Announcing a poor state of health

C10 66 Radio Waves

C10 67 Paul Donovan

C10 68 Radio 5 has just finished a series of programmes called Hard C10 69 Times. This was not a serialisation of Charles Dickens's novel for C10 70 GCSE pupils, but a week-long look at poverty in today's Britain. C10 71 Homelessness, ill-health, debt, divorce, mortgage arrears, old folk C10 72 dying from the cold each winter: the grim catalogue of social C10 73 breakdown mounted as the week wore on.

C10 74 The Topical peg for this was the publication last month of a C10 75 European commission report which claimed that Britain was the C10 76 poorest, or second poorest, or seventh poorest country (depending C10 77 on which index you chose) in the European Community, and that the C10 78 proportion of this country's 'poor' relative to the whole C10 79 population rose markedly in the years of Thatcherite ascendancy C10 80 between 1980 and 1985.

C10 81 You would hardly have learned from Radio 5's week, however, C10 82 that far from being a document handed down on tablets of stone and C10 83 accepted by all, the report was in fact roundly rejected by the C10 84 British government. Nicholas Scott, social security minister, said C10 85 its authors were talking about "inequality, not C10 86 poverty". (One idiosyncratic feature of the report was that C10 87 it based its comparisons on household spending, not income, thus C10 88 departing from the standard practice of its predecessors.)

C10 89 Such complexities did not blunt the thrust of Radio 5's series C10 90 of specially tailored programmes, which was that poverty has C10 91 reached crisis level and the gulf between rich and poor is widening C10 92 fast. "The whole idea of there being a floor through which C10 93 you can't fall has gone," said Carey Oppenheim of the Child C10 94 Poverty Action Group on Tuesday's edition of Sound Advice.

C10 95 "The idea that our patients can 'knit themselves woolly C10 96 hats and buy healthy food', in the words of one previous minister, C10 97 just doesn't apply," said an inner-city doctor from Bristol C10 98 on Thursday's edition of The Health Show. "Our patients C10 99 don't have the ability to choose. If you're stuck in a high-rise C10 100 block with three children and no father figure around, you can't C10 101 actually make the choice to go out and buy yourself healthy food, C10 102 and perhaps your cigarette is your only way of relieving the C10 103 tension."

C10 104 His comments followed a lengthy monologue by another GP, Dr C10 105 David Widgery, who practises in London's East End. "After C10 106 40 years of slowly trying to build a welfare state and 10 years of C10 107 trying rather more rapidly to replace it with a social market, C10 108 poverty is widespread and growing, and with it ill-health," C10 109 he said.

C10 110 Was there nobody who argued from the opposite perspective? Not C10 111 quite, but they were in a tiny minority. On the fourth day, the C10 112 Department of Social Security said that none of its ministers had C10 113 been invited to contribute to any of the programmes, which seems a C10 114 remarkable omission for a politically sensitive subject, especially C10 115 in what may turn out to be election year. Shortly after that Radio C10 116 5 approached the DSS to see if the benefits minister, Michael Jack, C10 117 was available for Friday's studio debate which wrapped up the C10 118 week.

C10 119 Hard Times began on Monday on Johnnie Walker's show, This C10 120 Family Business. A sociology professor from Brunel University, C10 121 David Marsland, argued that the welfare state discouraged C10 122 individual initiative and did not target those in real need with C10 123 sufficient precision, and that the confusion of poverty and C10 124 inequality was a deliberate ploy by the Left. He was outnumbered by C10 125 spokesmen from both the Child Poverty Action Group and Family C10 126 Policy Studies Centre, who criticised both him and supposed C10 127 government inaction.

C10 128 The next morning's Sound Advice contained much sensible C10 129 guidance from people in Citizen's Advice Bureaux on managing your C10 130 money and "prioritising" on low incomes. It was enlivened C10 131 by a man who rang in and explained how he lived on a diet which C10 132 seemed to consist mainly of porridge and pitted apples, which he C10 133 bought for 10p/lb. He had no car, no TV, avoided meat, used his C10 134 library, bought books for a few pence each at his local charity C10 135 shops, and sounded like one of life's natural broadcasters. But C10 136 there were also the usual campaigners, including the academic Peter C10 137 Townsend, vice-president of the Fabian Society. He popped up again C10 138 on The Health Show, talking about the dangers of damp concrete C10 139 tower blocks.

C10 140 Wednesday's edition of This Family Business dealt with poverty C10 141 as a cause of stress in the family, and we heard that divorce is at C10 142 its highest among the low-paid. It was followed by Education C10 143 Matters, on cutbacks.

C10 144 The message of the week, rammed home repeatedly, was that C10 145 poverty is growing and can only be averted with a caring, C10 146 compassionate government of the sort we do not have. There were C10 147 times when it sounded like a party political broadcast.

C10 148 Caroline Elliot, chief producer in the continuing education C10 149 department and the executive who oversaw the week, denies any C10 150 propagandist intent. "Our object was not to give anyone a C10 151 political soapbox but to dispense advice to those on a low income C10 152 or no income. We did ask the education minister, Tim Eggar, to C10 153 contribute to the item on nursery education on Education Matters, C10 154 but he turned us down, so we got a Conservative councillor instead. C10 155 We have tried to balance the partisan voices."

C10 156 Somehow, it didn't always sound like that.

C10 157 C10 158 It takes 17 to tango but fewer to flamenco

C10 159 David Dougill on the fiery Tango Argentino and a half-hearted C10 160 Night in Seville

C10 161 Tango Argentino, the music, song and dance show which C10 162 opened at the Aldwych Theatre last week, has toured the world since C10 163 it was first staged in 1983, but missed out on an intended British C10 164 visit some years ago because of that unfortunate episode, the C10 165 Falklands conflict.

C10 166 Now that all is lovey-dovey again, Claudio Segovia's and Hector C10 167 Orezzoli's production, which might be described as a high-class C10 168 cabaret, has at last arrived, amid a blaze of publicity about C10 169 tangomania to which it doesn't fully live up, although the show has C10 170 its delights and the first night audience went mad. I don't doubt C10 171 it will be a big success.

C10 172 The only decor is a starry sky and the tiered podium for the C10 173 orchestra, who are visible throughout, behind dancers and singers - C10 174 as is right enough, since the band's contribution is vital, C10 175 non-stop and quite brilliant. What seems curious is that such C10 176 marvellous music is produced by 11 players with consistently glum C10 177 expressions. Luis Stazo, the leader and one of the four C10 178 bandoneonists (accordionists) with his put upon face, is the image C10 179 of Les Dawson. The piano and strings have much to do, but it's the C10 180 hard work and energetically played bandoneon that gives tango music C10 181 its breathy, heady, yearning flavour.

C10 182 As to the 'soul' of tango, there's plenty of it in the solo C10 183 spots, for the four singers of a certain age, one of whom, Maria C10 184 Gra<*_>n-tilde<*/>a, has been called "Tango's Judy C10 185 Garland", and the likeness is indeed striking. A notable C10 186 feature of this company is that it includes many artists who have C10 187 made their names on the tango circuit in independent careers, some C10 188 of them quite long ones - and this goes for the dancers, too.

C10 189 While one of the younger men, Luis Pereyra, with his sultry C10 190 looks and slicked-down black hair, is astonishingly like the C10 191 youthful Serge Lifar of Diaghilev's company in the 1920s, others in C10 192 the troupe are middle-aged and portly - but nonetheless stylish, C10 193 even endearing in their dancing. The guest artists, Juan Carlos C10 194 Copes and Maria Nieves, have danced together for 40 years: she, C10 195 with short-cropped hair and fringed black dress, is a C10 196 Latin-American Zizi Jeanmaire; he partners her with the C10 197 imperturbable, no, implacable air of a head waiter at the Ritz.

C10 198 The tango was born a century ago, from many influences, in the C10 199 slums and bordellos of Buenos Aires; its dancers then were pimps C10 200 and prostitutes and their clients; its main theme, of course, was C10 201 sex. Graduating to theatres and cabarets, and getting refined in C10 202 the process, the dance enjoyed a famous tea-room craze. What Tango C10 203 Argentino offers - with the leggy women in glamorous split skirts C10 204 and plunging backlines, the men suavely suited and hatted - is C10 205 chiefly elegant, polished, sophisticated dancing.

C10 206 Only one number, in which the tail-coated man partners a girl C10 207 dressed as Mata Hari, represents the caricature Come Dancing style C10 208 of tango. But in each of the duets, the sexual element has become C10 209 stereotyped, the woman submitting at the climax in predictable C10 210 bent-kneed, bent-backed or straddled poses.

C10 211 The single item which tries for more, Milonguita, with its C10 212 slight plot about a girl seduced by a ruffian and eventually C10 213 stabbed, is fairly awful.

C10 214 C11 1 <#FLOB:C11\>Sinners and winners

C11 2 Dahl says farewell with an enchanting tale of naughtiness

C11 3 by NANETTE NEWMAN

C11 4 FEW writers have achieved the mass acclaim and devotion that C11 5 Roald Dahl elicits from his young readers.

C11 6 He has created a style that allows imagination a free rein, C11 7 encourages healthy rebellion, is funny and inventive and cocks a C11 8 snook at convention.

C11 9 He had that rare gift, the ability to write books that children C11 10 want to read, and his final story, The Minpins (Cape C11 11 pounds8.99), will not disappoint his followers.

C11 12 It begins with little Billy, tired of being good, gazing out of C11 13 the window. His mother is always telling him the things he is C11 14 allowed to do (which are boring) and the things he is not allowed C11 15 to do (which are exciting).

C11 16 One of the things he is never, ever allowed to do is the most C11 17 exciting of all - and that is to go through the garden gate and C11 18 explore the world beyond. Right from the beginning we know we are C11 19 only a turned page away from Billy disobeying his mother and doing C11 20 just that.

C11 21 In spite of her warning - "Beware, beware the forest of C11 22 Sin, none come out but many go in," and the threat that he C11 23 will encounter the Terrible Bloodsuckling, Toothpluckling, C11 24 Stonechuckling Spittler - Billy goes through the gates into the C11 25 black, secret wood.

C11 26 While trying to escape from the fearsome Gruncher who bellows C11 27 orange-red smoke, Billy climbs a tree and discovers the Minpins - C11 28 tiny families no bigger than a matchstick who live in trees and C11 29 wear welly-type suction boots to enable them to walk up and down C11 30 branches, defying gravity.

C11 31 Adventures C11 32 Dahl leads Billy through many scary adventures, finally landing C11 33 him back, safe and sound (and a hero to boot), in his own home.

C11 34 When his mother asks him what he's been up to, he replies with C11 35 blatant untruthfulness: "I'm being very, very C11 36 good."

C11 37 Billy's magical and amazing adventures are enchantingly C11 38 visualised in Patrick Benson's superb illustrations. This is a C11 39 splendidly produced book, which has all the makings of a winner.

C11 40 The last sentence in the story reads: "Those who don't C11 41 believe in magic will never find it."

C11 42 Roald Dahl found it and wrote about it in a way that will C11 43 enchant generations to come.

C11 44 C11 45 Viv hits the spot on a slow wicket

C11 46 David Thomas

C11 47 TV REVIEW

C11 48 FORGET sunshine and fresh air. For us armchair sportsmen the C11 49 summer is a season of long afternoons spent sprawled in front of C11 50 the box, cans of beer strategically situated around the living C11 51 room, and the family despatched on a day trip to granny.

C11 52 Midway through the first afternoon of the Fourth Test C11 53 (BBC, Thursday-Monday) I had almost been lulled into sleep by the C11 54 BBC's most deadly commentating duo, Jack Bannister and Tom C11 55 Graveney. But then years of training as a professional couch potato C11 56 really came into their own.

C11 57 Slipped C11 58 I was able to maintain my concentration for long enough to C11 59 glimpse the most highly prized sight in modern Test cricket - Viv C11 60 Richards' bald spot.

C11 61 Yes, the King of the Caribbean slipped while attempting to C11 62 field the ball and there it was, an unmistakable flash of bare C11 63 scalp where once his mighty tresses grew. If concentration is an C11 64 important virtue, so is team selection. Much the most controversial C11 65 example of this was the omission of Geoffrey Boycott from the C11 66 Beeb's opening attack. The curmudgeonly Yorkshireman has been C11 67 slated by some critics. Apparently, he isn't nice enough to C11 68 England's cricketers. But if he is never slow to criticise, he is C11 69 also generous to a fault on those rare occasions when praise is C11 70 deserved. And Boycott has one other gift: He points out things the C11 71 average viewer would not notice.

C11 72 This is the key Test of any sporting pundit - and about 90 per C11 73 cent of TV's rentamouths fail it. I can only hope Our Geoffrey's C11 74 absence was merely temporary.

C11 75 Test cricket is TV sport's answer to the mini-series. The only C11 76 difference is that you get to see hours of Graham Gooch and Curtly C11 77 Ambrose instead of Jane Seymour and Sir John Gielgud.

C11 78 There is something genuinely terrifying about the sight of C11 79 Curtly pounding in at full speed to shatter another set of English C11 80 stumps. Which is more than can be said for Chimera (ITV, C11 81 Sunday).

C11 82 The series has become progressively sillier and is in great C11 83 danger of ceasing to be entertaining junk and becoming merely C11 84 irritating.

C11 85 One cause of this is the complete humourlessness of everyone C11 86 concerned. Good thrillers benefit from the occasional wisecrack but C11 87 Chimera's actors all have their jaws clenched as tightly as their C11 88 buttocks.

C11 89 Glimpses C11 90 Then there's the monster. It's half man, half monkey and C11 91 completely unfrightening. A bit like Terry Wogan, except C11 92 that Terry's half man, half wallet. Last Monday (BBC1) he C11 93 interviewed Madonna, who is half woman, half bra.

C11 94 It was fascinating, partly because Madonna is an extraordinary C11 95 woman, and partly because one kept catching glimpses of the C11 96 intelligence that lurks behind Wogan's bland, self-satisfied C11 97 mask.

C11 98 Wogan could have been a man whose perceptiveness and charm drew C11 99 genuine insights from his guest. But he made the career decision to C11 100 turn down the challenge to his intellect and rely on easy, idle C11 101 chatter.

C11 102 Famous C11 103 One thousand shows later, he's rich, famous and successful. But C11 104 surely there's more to life than patting knees and being smug?

C11 105 Let me end as I began, with sport. For the past few weeks LWT C11 106 has been broadcasting The Game (Friday), a programme C11 107 devoted to Sunday morning football, as played on Hackney C11 108 Marshes.

C11 109 The players move with the grace and speed of geriatric rhinos. C11 110 Big-bellied and out of breath, they are a chilling reminder that C11 111 when we scream, "I could do better than C11 112 that!" at some hapless pro-footballer, we're lying.

C11 113 The Game is riveting: other ITV regions should give local pub C11 114 sides the same chance to achieve a moment of sporting immortality C11 115 and give long-suffering wives and girlfriends the best laugh C11 116 they've had in years.

C11 117 C11 118 Maid in the grand style

C11 119 Clive Hirschhorn

C11 120 BALLERINA Natalia Makarova certainly looks - and sounds - like C11 121 a Russian grand duchess.

C11 122 Indeed, on paper she is perfect casting for Tatiana Petrovna, C11 123 the heroine of Jacques Deval's 1934 comedy Tovarich C11 124 (Chichester Theatre).

C11 125 The fact that she is still somewhat tentative in the role and C11 126 that her command of English is rather less secure than her C11 127 arabesques, are minor blemishes.

C11 128 Aristocrat C11 129 She brings star quality to the role of an aristocrat who, with C11 130 her husband Prince Mikhail, fetches up in Paris after the C11 131 Revolution.

C11 132 Poverty stricken, Tatiana and her Prince (Robert Powell) hide C11 133 their real identities and become maid and butler to the wealthy C11 134 Parisian family Arbeziat.

C11 135 Their successful deception is the fulcrum on which Deval's C11 136 enjoyable jape pivots and it fleshes out an evening that begins C11 137 slowly, gathers momentum but loses steam as it wordily chugs C11 138 towards the finale.

C11 139 For Powell, who made his name playing Czar Nicholas opposite C11 140 Janet Suzman's Alexandra, the part is something of a homecoming and C11 141 he fills it splendidly.

C11 142 Patrick Garland's well-paced and enjoyable production C11 143 also benefits from Sarah Badel and Rowland Davies, as the C11 144 Arbeziats, and Tony Britton as a Bolshevik.

C11 145 <*_> square <*/>THOUGH farce has rarely sat comfortably on C11 146 musical comedy, The Boys From Syracuse (Regent's Park) by Richard C11 147 Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and George Abbott (based on the Comedy of C11 148 Errors), remains a crowd pleaser. All about the confusion wrought C11 149 by two sets of identical master-servant twins in the town of C11 150 Ephesus, it is spiritedly directed by Judi Dench.

C11 151 Gavin Muir and Richard O'Callaghan as the brothers Dromio, and C11 152 Bill Homewood and Peter Woodward as the servants, have splendid C11 153 opportunities for clowning - and cloning.

C11 154 Harmony C11 155 The women aren't bad, either. Louise Gold, Gilian Bevan and C11 156 Jenny Calloway are collective show stoppers as they trill, in close C11 157 harmony, Sing For Your Supper.

C11 158 Weather permitting, you are in for a good time.

C11 159 <*_> square <*/>SIAN PHILLIPS looks great, but mouths a most C11 160 bizarre Deep South accent in John Lahr's clever adaptation of C11 161 Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate (Lyric, C11 162 Hammersmith).

C11 163 Updated from Korea to the aftermath of the Gulf War, with fear C11 164 of Japanese economic power replacing commie phobia, Robin Midgley's C11 165 busy production of Condon's prophetic thriller still packs a C11 166 punch.

C11 167 But the movie is better.

C11 168 C11 169 Butter-fingered monster is a cut above the rest

C11 170 Snip goes a new star

C11 171 Clive Hirschhorn

C11 172 TIM BURTON'S Edward Scissorhands (PG) stylishly C11 173 recycles the legend of Frankenstein's monster, relocates it to C11 174 middle America in the 1960s and illustrates, in ravishing pastel C11 175 colours and stylised sets, the poignant story of young Edward C11 176 (Johnny Depp) whose creator (Vincent Price) endowed him with C11 177 razor-like scissors rather than hands.

C11 178 Though Edward is a lot better looking than Mary Shelley's C11 179 durable creation, what he has in common with his predecessor is C11 180 that he is basically a very nice guy.

C11 181 And talented, too, being adept at hedge-making, dog-trimming C11 182 and hair-styling. Thus, when he is rescued from his Gothic hill-top C11 183 mansion by a local Avon Lady (Dianne Wiest) he becomes something of C11 184 a celebrity.

C11 185 It is only after he rejects the amorous advances of a C11 186 manipulative neighbour (Kathy Baker), thereby incurring her hatred, C11 187 that things turn nasty and the misunderstood Edward is hounded back C11 188 to his lonely hill-top existence.

C11 189 Narratively speaking the story couldn't be simpler, nor more C11 190 familiar.

C11 191 Unanswered C11 192 What makes it special (despite such unanswered questions as why C11 193 the decrepit mansion hadn't been broken into by the locals a long C11 194 time ago, or why the inventor endowed his creation with blades in C11 195 the first place) is its look.

C11 196 Also contributing to its success are Burton's magical, C11 197 fairy-tale approach to the story, and Johnny Depp's expressively C11 198 inexpressive central performance.

C11 199 In fact, all the performances score. Dianne Wiest skilfully C11 200 avoids caricature as the compassionate Avon Lady, Alan Arkin is C11 201 just right as her accommodating husband and Winona Ryder - as their C11 202 teenage daughter - manages to make plausible her attraction for C11 203 Edward, though she knows he can never embrace her.

C11 204 And it is always nice to see - even in a cameo role - veteran C11 205 horror merchant Vincent Price.

C11 206 Although it evokes such classic horror movies as Frankenstein C11 207 and The Beast With Five Fingers, its look and atmosphere is C11 208 uniquely its own.

C11 209 Like the best fairy-tales, Edward Scissorhands resonates long C11 210 after you've left the cinema.

C11 211 C11 212 Lively exile is out to lay his African ghosts to rest

C11 213 by William Boyd

C11 214 THE child is father to the man, so Wordsworth said, and a happy C11 215 childhood will cast a glow over an adult life that exerts a C11 216 constant influence.

C11 217 If have often wondered if a colonial childhood, or more C11 218 precisely an African one, multiplies this general effect several C11 219 fold. There seems to be an irresistible tug of nostalgia that C11 220 operates whenever that continent is involved.

C11 221 Graham Lord's book, Ghosts Of King Solomon's Mines C11 222 (Sinclair Stevenson, pounds16.95), is a fine testimonial to C11 223 this effect.

C11 224 Born and raised in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and Mozambique in C11 225 the Forties and Fifties, Lord quit Africa as a teenager to go up to C11 226 Cambridge.

C11 227 Thirty years later the opportunity to return to the Dark C11 228 Continent presented itself and this is the result, a lively blend C11 229 of autobiography, travelogue and reportage that revisits key C11 230 locations of Lord's youth and fills in the troubled history of the C11 231 intervening years. In addition there are interviews with C11 232 significant players in Central African colonial politics: Garfield C11 233 Todd, Sir Roy Welensky and Ian Smith. Lord writes with a candour C11 234 and a nicely sceptical and unsentimental eye, that make these C11 235 portraits singularly vivid.

C11 236 This same candour and freshness is also apparent in the book's C11 237 more personal sections. Zimbabwe was known as "The jewel of C11 238 Africa" and Lord finds, after his years abroad, much still C11 239 to celebrate and admire.

C11 240 By strong contrast Mozambique now enjoys the unhappy sobriquet C11 241 of 'Africa's sewer' and Lord's sojourn there is typically hellish: C11 242 Heat, stench, apathy, grinding poverty. Everything has changed - C11 243 and for the worse. Perhaps this is what makes Africa's appeal so C11 244 potent: The quality of its joy is as marked as its despair.

C11 245 Your life there is characterised by an intensity - benign and C11 246 sinister - that produces memories and reveries that will haunt you C11 247 for ever.

C11 248 At the end of the book Lord declares that he will never return, C11 249 that the "ghosts" of his past have been finally laid.

C11 250 C12 1 <#FLOB:C12\>Armchair arias

C12 2 ANDREW HUBBARD

C12 3 Anybody setting out to produce Don Giovanni must face C12 4 the issue of whether the work is fundamentally a tragedy with some C12 5 comic episodes or a comedy with tragic reverberations. This is, of C12 6 course, the crux of a debate that has been running almost since the C12 7 opera was first performed. If nineteenth-century commentators saw C12 8 the work as essentially a moral tragedy, in the present century we C12 9 have been readier to recognize its comic and farcical elements. C12 10 Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back. This is certainly the C12 11 impression given by Tim Albery's new production of the opera for C12 12 Opera North.

C12 13 Albery wastes no time in letting us know that his view is one C12 14 of uncompromising seriousness. Even before the overture has C12 15 started, the principals enter the gloomily lit stage with faces set C12 16 in unrelieved solemnity. This is entirely at one with the opening, C12 17 but it is a serious miscalculation for the tableau to continue C12 18 unchanged throughout the allegro section of the overture. There is C12 19 a modern tendency to regard Mozart's lively buffo C12 20 music as deliberately cynical, but I find it hard to believe that C12 21 this high-spirited, joyous music was meant to be taken at anything C12 22 other than face value. A production that does not respond to such C12 23 contrasts (and this is only one example), whatever its other C12 24 merits, offers only an incomplete view of Mozart's imaginative C12 25 vision.

C12 26 The incidental merits of the production are considerable, C12 27 however: the graveyard scene and the descent to hell, for example. C12 28 Giovanni's triumphalism in the face of ultimate disaster can hardly C12 29 fail to thrill even in the most leaden production, but Albery's C12 30 fine sense of theatre has the audience on the edge of their seats. C12 31 The image of Helen Field's half-crazed yet dignified Donna Anna C12 32 swearing vengeance in front of a burning orange sun is enough to C12 33 make even the most innocent man in the audience fear for his C12 34 safety.

C12 35 The production is based on a single, deliberately nondescript C12 36 set raised on one side to suggest a wall. Dramatic space is defined C12 37 by the use of armchairs, on which members of the cast also sit when C12 38 not involved in the action. The chairs are a useful hiding-place C12 39 and come into their own when forming a circle around Leporello C12 40 during his interrogation - but their constant movement rapidly C12 41 becomes distracting, especially during 'Il mio tesoro C12 42 intanto', an aria which is difficult to sing without the C12 43 distraction of furniture removals. This might be a suitable device C12 44 to cover up the inadequate fioratura of the C12 45 second-rate Don Ottavin: Paul Nilon was in no need of such C12 46 assistance.

C12 47 Paul Daniel's conducting, and much of the singing, is imbued C12 48 with the spirit of the production. Exciting to the point of being C12 49 hard-driven in the dramatic moments, Daniel appears unwilling to C12 50 relax in the more lyrical episodes, almost, it seems, for fear of C12 51 admitting that there is another side to the opera. Certainly the C12 52 dry acoustic of the Lyceum theatre is never going to bring out the C12 53 full resonance of the woodwind tone, but even so this is not a C12 54 performance for those who relish the richness and variety of C12 55 Mozart's scoring.

C12 56 There remains the matter of Don Giovanni's wearing of women's C12 57 clothes and make-up during the champagne aria. This is a successful C12 58 coup de C12 59 th<*_>e-acute<*/><*_>a-circ<*/>tre. It certainly adds a C12 60 new dimension to the relationship between master and servant, C12 61 although one wonders how Giovanni had time for homosexual conquests C12 62 as well as the 1,003 Spanish women. What was most surprising was C12 63 that none of the guests at the party seemed to notice that their C12 64 host was wearing an elegant couture number.

C12 65 C12 66 With the naked eye

C12 67 BRIAN CASE

C12 68 "He moved his eyes off her, an act of will", C12 69 runs the epigraph to Lee Friedlander's book of nude women. His C12 70 models are sometimes ill-favoured with cellulite and scars. Few C12 71 would pass for Page Three girls. Egon Schiele is cited in Ingrid C12 72 Sischy's afterword, but Bonnard's domestic nudes may be more to the C12 73 point. Friedlander photographed women in their own homes, and, we C12 74 are told, let them determine the poses. "They're the world C12 75 and the heavens boiled down to a drop", runs the next C12 76 epigraph.

C12 77 The breadth of his subject matter is on exhibition at the C12 78 Victoria & Albert Museum, and it falls into the categories of jazz, C12 79 street, work, trees and American monuments. Very much in the C12 80 tradition of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, Friedlander finds C12 81 statements in the humdrum surfaces of American life. Car bonnets, C12 82 street signs, shop window reflections, the random configurations of C12 83 pedestrians: it is not quite honest reportage since an informing C12 84 aesthetic is at work here. He uses a Leica because "with a C12 85 camera like that you don't believe that you're in the masterpiece C12 86 business. It's enough to be able to peck at the world." The C12 87 photograph of the Count Basie band asleep on the band bus is C12 88 amusing if one anticipates the impact of sixteen men swinging, and C12 89 contrasts the undefended faces of the sleepers with the practised C12 90 stage reflexes; but Val Wilmer has got it closer and cared more. C12 91 Coleman Hawkins, the father of the saxophone and a slippery C12 92 customer for all chronicles to date, is caught without his shirt. C12 93 Also caught without his shirt is the photographer himself: though C12 94 not, as feminists may wish, without his pants. Friedlander sits C12 95 under a floor-standing lamp next to a radiator in his shorts like a C12 96 man on Death Row.

C12 97 Broadly, the book of female nudes groups the photos into C12 98 headless poses, reveries, and odd angles. The eye is caught by the C12 99 revelations of flashlight. Some images rush at the viewer with C12 100 disconcerting blatancy, others appear as flattened as cut-outs. A C12 101 few glisten with the sort of strength-through-joy patina associated C12 102 with Leni Riefenstahl. Avoirdupois becomes a plaything. The weight C12 103 of a reclining bottom swags down the sofa so that the edging strip C12 104 on the cushions echoes the line of the body; elsewhere, weightless C12 105 swimmers and divers float on the upholstery. The photographs C12 106 emphasize the contrast between the rich eventfulness of the bodies C12 107 and the functional lines and textures of a door frame, a flowerpot, C12 108 a roll top desk. Was kitchen chair ever more inanimate than when C12 109 occupied by a nude? Bodies are paired across a double spread, a C12 110 palindromic landscape of hills and dales, a symmetry of shapes and C12 111 spaces, a knot of flesh.

C12 112 Friedlander's is not a reverent eye. Breasts are a rich jest, C12 113 and hang pendant into the top frame of the photo. A shelf of books C12 114 in the background perhaps prompted the schoolboy phrase, four-eyes, C12 115 and the breasts become spectacles. A nude lying under a low table C12 116 shares her photo with a photo of the Marx Brothers. Perhaps the C12 117 broadest joke occurs on pages sixty-three and sixty-four which C12 118 seems to centre on super-abundant pubic hair. A model, C12 119 foreshortened at the start of a handstand, becomes a copse of C12 120 crotch and armpit hair, while, as if to balance this, one C12 121 delicately cocked foot peeps into frame. Some models appear to be C12 122 lying in a hammock of their own gender. Clearly, Friedlander is no C12 123 fan of depilation. Among the reveries, women's faces are cocooned C12 124 in dreams, lost as Rossetti heroines, while the foreground is C12 125 dominated by a breech presentation of vulva and foot soles. C12 126 Tristesse contends with a giant knee, a looming foot, and net C12 127 curtains blow in a breeze. Some of the photographs are severely C12 128 cropped and may remind the viewer of Edward Weston's work in the C12 129 genre, or the great Blue Note album covers.

C12 130 There are four studies of the pre-stardom Madonna, interesting C12 131 in view of her cultivatedly raunchy image, amusing in view of the C12 132 photographer's selection of "women in their prime". C12 133 She could be an extra in some Italian Neo-realist film with her C12 134 unshaven armpits, bobby pins and hairy legs. Bob Guccione Sr, C12 135 publisher of Penthouse, rejected the studies. Madonna was not C12 136 well groomed; to use Friedlander's photos would be "like C12 137 scraping the bottom of the barrel". According to C12 138 photographer Herman Leonard, who also started in jazz before C12 139 gravitating towards the female nude, Heffner's directive to C12 140 photographers was that there should be something in the photo to C12 141 imply the presence of a man within the last five minutes. There's C12 142 none of that here. None of the brouhaha that surrounded Marilyn C12 143 Monroe's 1949 nude <}_><-|>calender<+|><}/>calendar poses for Tom C12 144 Kelley - he paid her $50 - has attended Madonna's unveiling.

C12 145 C12 146 The one and the many

C12 147 A. W. MOORE

C12 148 Mathematics, according to many philosophers and mathematicians, C12 149 is set theory. They may be overstating their case. But it is a C12 150 primary task for anyone who aspires to a self-conscious C12 151 understanding of mathematics to say what a set is. And the standard C12 152 explanation, David Lewis complains, is inadequate. A set, we are C12 153 told - this is Cantor's definition - is "a many which can C12 154 be thought of as one". Alternatively, it is a one which C12 155 corresponds to a many. But what about a singleton (a set with only C12 156 one member)? Where is the "many" in that? The standard C12 157 explanation seems to fail already in this most basic case.

C12 158 Lewis's<&|>sic! guiding idea in his Parts of Classes C12 159 is as beautiful and as powerful as it is simple: to take seriously C12 160 the conception of the singleton as the most basic case, and to C12 161 regard bigger sets as quite literally made up of singletons. Thus C12 162 your singleton and my singleton together constitute the set of C12 163 which you and I are the only two members: each is a part of it. Set C12 164 theory, on this conception, is not fundamentally about how many C12 165 begets a one; it is fundamentally about how a one begets a C12 166 (different) one - which in turn begets a (yet different) one, and C12 167 so on. Thereafter it is just a matter of putting the bits C12 168 together.

C12 169 This does not solve traditional philosophical perplexities C12 170 about sets. But it does, in Lewis's<&|>sic! view, locate them. We C12 171 need to know what kind of thing a singleton is; how, if at all, we C12 172 grasp the concept; why some things (and in particular, some things C12 173 which are otherwise just like sets) are too big to have C12 174 singletons; and so forth. Lewis is content for the most part just C12 175 to raise such questions. His more immediate concern is to C12 176 establish, from within a logical framework that governs the C12 177 relation of parts to wholes, that he has an adequate formal base C12 178 for set theory. This he does in rich, fascinating detail. He argues C12 179 en passant that the relation of a C12 180 thing to its singleton is the very same relation as that of a C12 181 natural number to its successor (so 6 is a set whose sole member is C12 182 5). And in an appendix, written jointly with Burgess and Hazen, he C12 183 spells out a structuralist construal of singletons to which he is C12 184 nevertheless unsympathetic (because he takes it to be too C12 185 revisionary). His presentation is throughout brilliant, elegant and C12 186 witty.

C12 187 I am less clear how much it has in the way of philosophical C12 188 impact. Two things are crucial to Lewis's<&|>sic! overall C12 189 conception. (1) Pure assembly - putting things together - does not C12 190 yield anything new: wholes are nothing over and above their parts. C12 191 (2) Wholes, just like their parts, can have singletons. It seems to C12 192 me that, given (1), (2) is every bit as mysterious (or as C12 193 unmysterious) as the idea that a one is a special case of many, the C12 194 idea that Lewis finds objectionable in the standard explanation of C12 195 what a set is. It is true that someone broadly sympathetic to C12 196 Lewis's<&|>sic! reconstruction of set theory need not accept (1). C12 197 They could say that putting many things together, and applying the C12 198 singleton operation to one thing, are two different ways of getting C12 199 a new thing; and this would ease the mystery, such as it is. But C12 200 how much of a mystery is it? I find myself much less troubled C12 201 than Lewis by the idea that a one is a special case of a many. C12 202 (Likewise, for that matter, a none. Lewis is forced to make some C12 203 very bizarre claims about the "null set" - the set C12 204 with no members.) C12 205 C13 1 <#FLOB:C13\>Literature

C13 2 The spellbinding story-tellers

C13 3 Oral epic from Homer to Hercegovina

C13 4 ERICH SEGAL

C13 5 In the beginning were the words, wing<*_>e-acute<*/>d at first C13 6 until, paralysed, they fell to earth and were imprisoned by their C13 7 nemesis, the alphabet. The late E.A. Havelock, a brilliant, C13 8 controversial classicist, made this paradox about Homer the focus C13 9 of his scholarship during the entire second half of his long life: C13 10 "two poems we can read in documented form, the first C13 11 'literature' of Europe ... constitute the first complete record of C13 12 'orality', that is 'non-literature' ... a statement of how C13 13 civilized man governed his life and thought during several C13 14 centuries when he was entirely innocent of the art (or arts) of C13 15 reading". This is dramatic enough, and one need not go to C13 16 the extreme of B.B. Powell whose recent Homer and the Origin C13 17 of the Greek Alphabet (reviewed in the TLS on June 14, C13 18 1991) puts forth the rather too coincidental notion that the Greek C13 19 alphabet was invented by a single man - in Euboia, to be precise - C13 20 for the specific purpose of recording the two Homeric epics. It is C13 21 enough to say that, when committed to writing, the unique character C13 22 of oral poetry evanesces.

C13 23 Anyone who has studied Homer in the second half of this century C13 24 is aware of the pioneering work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, C13 25 and the conclusions they extrapolated from studying and recording C13 26 the works of Serbo-Croatian bards. In C13 27 "L'Epith<*_>e-grave<*/>te traditionelle dans C13 28 Hom<*_>e-grave<*/>re" (1928) and subsequent C13 29 essays, Parry called attention to the use of formulas in C13 30 traditional poetry, groups of words "regularly employed C13 31 under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential C13 32 idea". In various articles and his landmark book, The C13 33 Singer of Tales (1960), Lord explained the nature of thematic C13 34 composition: "groups of ideas regularly used in telling a C13 35 tale in the formulaic style of traditional song". We now C13 36 understand that when Homer 'nods' with repetition, or seems to C13 37 assign banal or inappropriate epithets to various characters, these C13 38 features are likely to be reflexes of the traditional diction that C13 39 the bard finds metrically useful, while inwardly he busies himself C13 40 composing what will follow.

C13 41 Oral poetry presupposes illiteracy on the part of the audience C13 42 no less than the minstrel. Since by its very nature it has no C13 43 universally fixed text, how can one address the material using the C13 44 conventional critical armamentarium? The printed grapheme is vastly C13 45 different from the ephemeral phoneme. In Havelock's words, C13 46 "oral language does not fossilize". In fact, what C13 47 we have in the Homeric epics is at best oral-derived C13 48 poetry, edited most famously under Pisistratus in the sixth century C13 49 BC and meticulously divided into their now canonical twenty-four C13 50 books by the librarians at Alexandria in the third. The words were C13 51 now trapped on papyrus. The music was lost for ever.

C13 52 John Miles Foley, one of the distinguished scholarly heirs of C13 53 Parry-Lord (they have become a critical hyphenate), has attempted C13 54 to bring the discipline of oral studies to its necessary conclusion C13 55 - the establishment of an appropriate poetic. At the outset of C13 56 Traditional Oral Epic, his second book on the subject (a C13 57 third is already in progress), he puts forth the reasoning behind C13 58 his methodology: "A traditional text is not simply a C13 59 synchronic lattice-work, but also a diachronic document of great C13 60 age and depth. For tradition is nothing if not diachronic: it has C13 61 roots which reach back into its pre-textual history and which C13 62 inform the present avatar of its identity." Foley employs C13 63 linguistic, metric and thematic analysis to compare the C13 64 Odyssey, Beowulf and Return Songs by three C13 65 guslari from the Stolac district of central C13 66 Hercegovina. He is splendidly trained for this daunting task, C13 67 conversant not only in the classical and medieval Germanic tongues C13 68 but in the Slavic dialects as well.

C13 69 Traditional Oral Epic begins with a microscopic C13 70 examination of so-called formulaic phrases to distinguish what is C13 71 truly the stuff of traditional poetry. Understandably, this yields C13 72 special riches where field-workers have been able to converse with C13 73 living authors. What do the singers themselves mean by 'words' C13 74 (epea in Greek - whence epic - C13 75 rije<*_>c-hacek<*/>i in Serbo-Croatian)? How can a C13 76 Yugoslavian singer repeat a familiar episode using different C13 77 vocabulary and still insist he is telling it C13 78 rije<*_>c-hacek<*/> za C13 79 rije<*_>c-hacek<*/>, word-for-word? As Foley C13 80 explains, the bard's idiosyncratic concept regards 'words' not as C13 81 verbatim echoes, but as "poetic lines, units that epitomize C13 82 what Parry called an 'essential idea' and which are governed by the C13 83 metrical structure of the tradition".

C13 84 Demonstrating the enormous complexity involved in the C13 85 contemporary study of epic diction, Foley convincingly argues that C13 86 some of the poetic language can be non-formulaic but still highly C13 87 traditional. He devotes three chapters to careful readings of C13 88 "the prosodies that exist in symbiosis with the ancient C13 89 Greek, Old English, and Serbo-Croatian epic phraseologies, and C13 90 which thus ultimately figure in the verbal expression of narrative C13 91 patterns". At this point, he cites Roman Jakobson's C13 92 comparison of the Yugoslavian epic line and metres from other C13 93 Slavic traditions, all of which provide a 'third witness' (in C13 94 addition to Greek and Vedic) to the foundations of Indo-European C13 95 verse. Examining the 'inner metric' (a phrase coined to complement C13 96 the 'outer metric' described by Eugene O'Neill Jr in an important C13 97 1942 article), Foley argues that the hexameter and the C13 98 Serbo-Croatian epic decasyllable can "reach beyond the C13 99 synchronic surface of the texts to their diachronic roots". C13 100 He carefully evolves a set of "traditional rules" C13 101 which provides new insights for oral poetry (including Old English, C13 102 whose prosody is somewhat different).

C13 103 Fine examples of Foley's method in action include his C13 104 discussion of the formulaic density in the famous 'octopus simile' C13 105 (the hero clinging desperately to a rock) at Odyssey 5.432, C13 106 his analysis of an extract of a Yugoslavian Return Song and a C13 107 treatment of Beowulf 717b, one of the several passages that C13 108 contain the phrase ham gesohte ("he C13 109 sought his home"). In each instance he goes beyond the C13 110 simplistic exhuming of formulaic devices, some of which he has C13 111 already found hidden, not merely in hemistichs and full lines but C13 112 even in enjambed verses.

C13 113 We now enter the realm of what might be called macro-criticism. C13 114 Following the pioneering study of W. Arend, Die typischen C13 115 Szenen bei Homer (1933), Foley analyses conventional C13 116 episodes in the three epic traditions. Studying the seven 'bath C13 117 scenes' in the Odyssey, he concentrates on the morphology of C13 118 the passage in Book 23.153ff, in which the faithful housekeeper C13 119 Eurynome washes and anoints the hero, who has just dramatically C13 120 announced his reappearance by slaughtering the suitors. This is the C13 121 single occurrence where the bath set-piece does not lead directly C13 122 into an equally conventional 'feast scene'. Instead, the poet C13 123 presents Penelope confronting her long-lost husband with the riddle C13 124 of the olive-tree bed. Foley concludes: "this instance of C13 125 the pattern shows not a deviation from expectation but an C13 126 augmentation of the conventional sequence, and its extraordinary C13 127 make-up derives directly from the traditional expectation on which C13 128 Homer, or his poetic tradition, has so brilliantly built." C13 129 Perhaps the operative word is "expectation". The audience, C13 130 its own mnemonic powers enhanced in a non-literate society, is C13 131 assumed to know the basic narrative and hence has its sensibilities C13 132 delighted just as a modern musical audience would be surprised and C13 133 entertained by a 'deceptive cadence'.

C13 134 Foley also points to an analogous variation on the theme of the C13 135 sea-voyage in Beowulf. Well before the protagonist appears, C13 136 the archetypal hero, Scyld Scefing, embarks upon a maritime C13 137 journey. The passage is laden with conventional language and we are C13 138 even told that Scyld "led his men to the ship". The C13 139 significant difference is that this voyage is Scyld's funeral. C13 140 Recognition of a familiar topos, so Foley argues, "enlarges C13 141 our notion of thematic morphology and offers a perspective on the C13 142 poet's art ... This view of Scyld's passage from the world is made C13 143 possible through the metonymic poetics of oral tradition, without C13 144 whose associative dynamics such a perspective could not be C13 145 achieved."

C13 146 In discussing the basic schema of the Yugoslavian Return Song, C13 147 Foley distinguishes an archetypal story pattern consisting of five C13 148 elements: Absence, Devastation, Return, Retribution and Wedding. C13 149 The resemblance to the Odyssey is striking, down to many C13 150 smaller details, and we are very close to the essential, C13 151 irreducible elements of traditional narratology here.

C13 152 Homer is an orally derived text and Beowulf an C13 153 eighth-century AD poem even more wedded to the written word by its C13 154 single manuscript. Foley's richest lode for the establishing of an C13 155 oral poetics would therefore seem the Yugoslavian connection - C13 156 especially when the guslari sing into a modern C13 157 tape-recorder, their words still in flight and untranscribed. And C13 158 yet he seems to have ignored the abundant treasures of the Indian C13 159 tradition. India has a contemporary performance tradition which C13 160 includes not only folk epics but even the national Sanskrit C13 161 masterpieces, the R<*_>a-length<*/>m<*_>a-length<*/>yama C13 162 and the Mah<*_>a-length<*/>bh<*_>a-length<*/>rata, C13 163 which, although classical texts with standard editions, also C13 164 coexist in ever-changing folk reinterpretations.

C13 165 Another area still left relatively unexplored is aurality or C13 166 the acoustic dimension. What of the 'hearer' - the traditional C13 167 poet's audience in the literal sense of the word? In his study of C13 168 Hesiod, The Wing<*_>e-acute<*/>d Word (1975), Berkley C13 169 Peabody called our attention to what he (somewhat uneuphoniously) C13 170 calls "phonic clumps". In the case of Homer at C13 171 least, we will never be able to appreciate the true effect of his C13 172 verse. For his performances are not only unrecorded in the C13 173 electronic sense, but are by definition unrepeatable.

C13 174 In matters of Homeric diction, no scholar fails to adduce the C13 175 authority of J.B. Hainsworth, whose publications include The C13 176 Flexibility of the Homeric Formula (1968) and several C13 177 important articles, including "The Criticism of an Oral C13 178 Homer" (1970). He is also co-editor of the first volume of C13 179 a new commentary on the Odyssey. With The Idea of C13 180 Epic, however, Hainsworth reveals a new facet of his C13 181 scholarship. This is a delightful survey of the rise and - in the C13 182 author's opinion at least - fall of a literary form. Though C13 183 beginning with a glance backwards at the Sumerians of the third C13 184 millennium BC, the vast majority of his book deals with Homer and C13 185 his eight extant classical successors. Hainsworth pays scant C13 186 attention to mock-epic. Petronius, for example, is not cited for C13 187 his ironic parodies (of Lucan, perhaps even of the Odyssey), C13 188 but only for his remark on the impossibility of epic: "the C13 189 free spirit of genius must plunge headlong into allusions and C13 190 divine interpositions and rack itself for epigrams colored<&|>sic! C13 191 by mythology ...".

C13 192 Few would dispute Hainsworth's observation that C13 193 "survival is not a sure guide to quality". Indeed, C13 194 like the names on Koko's little list, Valerius Flaccus' C13 195 Argonautica, Silius Italicus' Punic War (which, C13 196 quipped Pliny the Younger, was written with "more C13 197 perspiration than inspiration"), Quintus of Smyrna's C13 198 Posthomerica, Nonnus' Dionysiaca and Statius' C13 199 Thebaid "would none of them be missed". Yet C13 200 Apollonius' Argonautica offers a fascinating picture of the C13 201 heroic world in twilight, strains of romantic melody growing C13 202 audible in the background. Lucan's Bellum civile, with C13 203 its theme of virtue opposing tyranny, inspires the poet to C13 204 passionate rhetorical heights, his concept of a political epic C13 205 "the last significant development of the genre made in C13 206 antiquity". But Virgil's Aneid is without question an C13 207 unrivalled work of genius. Different from Homer to be sure, but not C13 208 less a classic, despite Quintilian's supercilious preference for C13 209 the Greek poet.

C13 210 Not surprisingly, Hainsworth is best on Homer and Homeric C13 211 Kunstsprache - that peculiar amalgam of archaisms, C13 212 neologisms and various dialects which is the altogether appropriate C13 213 medium for an epic that was quintessentially Greek before the C13 214 notion of Greece existed. One might, however, take issue with one C13 215 or two of his assertions. His statement that "in the C13 216 Illiad death is absolute, unmitigated by any meaningful hope C13 217 of survival" should be read against the eloquent discussion C13 218 of death and heroic glory in Jasper Griffin's Homer on Life an C13 219 Death (1980).

C13 220 Hainsworth is also excellent on the language and style of C13 221 Virgil's Augustan masterpiece. He reminds us of the difficult task C13 222 faced by the author of the Aneid - to be as Greek as Homer, C13 223 yet as Roman as his patrons: "Virgil makes a fantasy, the C13 224 Homeric Olympus, stand for something real, the Roman sense of C13 225 history". Nor is he afraid to confront more difficult C13 226 literary issues that might justifiably have been avoided in so C13 227 brief a study.

C13 228 C14 1 <#FLOB:C14\>Breezy Whistles from the subway

C14 2 By GEORGE WATSON

C14 3 MOST HISTORIANS who deal with intellectual flirtations with the C14 4 totalitarian idea concentrate on the inter-war years and the rival C14 5 camps of Fascism and Communism, earnestly sorting out their C14 6 camp-followers and fellow-travellers. John Hoyles of the University C14 7 of Hull, who has been giving a course there on the matter, starts a C14 8 lot further back, with Rosseau<&|>sic! and Dostoevsky; and the last C14 9 third of his book is dominated by Franz Kafka who (like Lenin) died C14 10 in 1924. He does not even mention Nazi sympathisers like Wyndham C14 11 Lewis, which seems odd, or 1930s Marxists like Auden and Co, which C14 12 seems odder. So perhaps the book is meant as a source-study, though C14 13 much of the critical comment is post-war.

C14 14 An eccentric shape is matched by tone. Mr Hoyles casually calls C14 15 himself a humanist and surrealist in his introduction, which C14 16 suggests a sense of strain but apparently isn't meant to, adding C14 17 engagingly that he pays "lip-service to critical C14 18 Marxism", though it remains unclear whether critical here C14 19 means literary or sceptical; and he plainly admires Adorno, C14 20 Andr<*_>e-acute<*/> Breton and Walter Benjamin a lot. Lip-service C14 21 commonly implies hypocrisy, but something else must be meant since C14 22 nobody accuses himself of that, and one is left wondering what it C14 23 might be. Much of the book is likely to have been written before C14 24 the death of Communism in 1989, or it could hardly declare that C14 25 Communism "embodies the birth-pangs of the new". C14 26 The mystery occasionally clarifies. At one point, for example, in a C14 27 rare burst of conviction, he remarks that "the Greenham C14 28 Common women have succeeded in dramatising the reality of American C14 29 occupation of this island", which situates the author C14 30 firmly on the political map. Reality is a highly committal word. C14 31 But it is only a passing phrase.

C14 32 For the rest, the book is whimsical, marked by a sort of C14 33 bucket-and-spade intellectualism that makes one begin to guess what C14 34 lip-service might mean. Where truth is despaired of, there is C14 35 nothing left, as of the Cheshire Cat, but the grin. Jesting Pilate C14 36 asked "What is truth?", and the tag might have been C14 37 made for the book; and one imagines that Hoyles, like Pilate, would C14 38 not stay for an answer.

C14 39 There are few answers here, plenty of hypotheses. To be told C14 40 that Kierkegaard "with eccentric and iconoclastic brio C14 41 <}_><-|>hypoststasises<+|>hypostases<}/> into absolutes the C14 42 variables of the modern condition" is to be told nothing C14 43 about Kierkegaard or the modern condition, even if one reads on. C14 44 The sense of history, too, is slap-happy, though buoyed up with the C14 45 hope that where carelessness is owed it may look like something C14 46 else.

C14 47 There are "date-clusters", for example, or happy C14 48 coincidences of books and events, probably rather useful on a C14 49 blackboard, and in general a light-handed way with detail. George C14 50 Orwell did not call his most famous novel 1984, for example, and C14 51 Thomas Mann, who was not in Germany when the Nazis seized power, C14 52 was not forced into exile: he chose not to return.

C14 53 But then research is neither the method nor the object of the C14 54 book. To read the first date-cluster, which figures the C14 55 Communist Manifesto of 1848, Gobineau's Essay on the C14 56 Inequality of the Human Races of five years later, and the C14 57 death of Kierkegaard, one would never guess that Marx and Engels C14 58 publicly advocated genocide - or that Gobineau, that monster of C14 59 the Right, did not. This is a world of simple oppositions; and C14 60 though the book itself is not tidy, its assumptions are.

C14 61 Kafka broods over the book and decorates the dust-jacket. He C14 62 never knew totalitarianism, but he had a bossy father and arguably C14 63 prefigured the whole thing. There is a point to be made here: C14 64 perhaps that he urged submission to bullying before the bullies C14 65 marched in step or built their concentration-camps, since his C14 66 opposition stopped short at writing an indictment of his father C14 67 which he did not publish.

C14 68 But no coherent case is built here, though Kafka is rightly C14 69 seen as heroic, in his grief if nothing else. It would be a rash C14 70 historian, in any case, who claimed that his writings had any C14 71 effect on the course of history.

C14 72 The book is altogether a pleasant pastime, and may mask more C14 73 conviction than it shows. Its tone is at once knowing and bland, as C14 74 if the author had seen, and seen through, a lot of profundities of C14 75 which he is prepared to report only a little.

C14 76 Hence the whimsy. Strange that gulag and gas-chamber should C14 77 inspire a tone of mild amusement and cosmic scepticism. But then it C14 78 is the product of a department of literature, and literature can do C14 79 that to people, if they let it. Hoyles has read a lot of books, and C14 80 he will be a good critic if he can brace himself to ask whether the C14 81 lip-service he still pays is still worth paying.

C14 82 C14 83 From Hysteric to analyst

C14 84 By CHRISTINA BRITZOLAKIS

C14 85 SINCE Sylvia Plath's suicide in 1963, the history of her C14 86 reception as a writer has been beset by the language of scandal and C14 87 controversy. Robert Lowell's description of the posthumously C14 88 published Ariel poems as "the autobiography of a C14 89 fever" set the keynote for many febrile accounts of Plath's C14 90 life and work as the symptoms of a self-destructive pathology. C14 91 Madness and suicide became the telos and ultimate C14 92 meaning of her career: on the one hand, she was positioned as the C14 93 prototypical female subject of psychoanalysis, the hysteric who C14 94 confesses her illness; on the other, she became a literary martyr C14 95 to the feminist cause, doomed victim of a culture in which genius C14 96 was defined as a male cultural preserve.

C14 97 Jacqueline Rose's incisive and carefully researched critique of C14 98 Plath's cultural afterlife starts from the bold assumption that C14 99 "Plath is a fantasy". In the "haunted" C14 100 responses of biographers and critics, the poet becomes accountable C14 101 for the spectre of female sexuality which her writing summons up. C14 102 Pathologising critical discourse, whether celebratory or damning, C14 103 projects fears about the decline of high culture on the image of a C14 104 deathly femininity. Part of Rose's polemic is, however, reserved C14 105 for feminist criticism, which has, she argues, too often tended to C14 106 recapitulate the dualistic terms of this debate, reading women's C14 107 writing either as a narrative of unified selfhood or as a C14 108 hysterical outpouring of the body. The book's project is to avoid C14 109 the pitfalls of these alternative extremes, using the C14 110 psychoanalytic concept of "fantasy" to attend to the C14 111 interface between the psychic and the historical. The terms of the C14 112 debate are thus neatly reversed: Plath becomes the analyst, whose C14 113 writing diagnoses the symptomatic discontents of criticism.

C14 114 In her most persuasive chapter, 'The Archive', Rose provides a C14 115 detailed and scrupulous mapping of the multiple ways in which the C14 116 corpus of Plath's writings has been controlled and indeed censored C14 117 by the Plath Estate. This is a timely assertion of "the C14 118 diversity of interpretation" against the restrictions C14 119 placed on it by Ted and Olwyn Hughes. Rose's target is not, C14 120 however, the estate itself, but the self-defeating C14 121 "logic of blame" at work in the editing of the C14 122 papers, which attempts to legislate between the different and C14 123 contradictory selves produced by the letters, diaries, novels, and C14 124 poems.

C14 125 If the archive attempts to constitute a Sylvia Plath cleansed C14 126 of anger, sexuality, left-wing politics and popular culture, Rose C14 127 goes some way towards restoring these crucial texts of her life and C14 128 work. In particular, she argues that Plath's long-standing ambition C14 129 to be a writer of fiction for women's magazines, which has been C14 130 censoriously relegated to the margins of her identity as a writer, C14 131 should be recognised as central. This is a valuable insight, even C14 132 if it seems something of an overstatement; Rose tends to stress the C14 133 "pleasure" derived from "low" forms of writing at C14 134 the expense of the many guilty, ambivalent or contemptuous moments C14 135 in Plath's writing. Rose's close readings of individual poems form C14 136 the least successful part of the book's exposition. C14 137 "Fantasy" is too capacious a paradigm to account for the C14 138 specificity of a poem's address to its readers. The concluding C14 139 analysis of 'Daddy', for example, draws on a plethora of diverse C14 140 contextual material, which, however fascinating in itself, tends to C14 141 swallow up the poem. What is elided, in the fraught and circuitous C14 142 route to the conclusion that Plath's poems "lay out a C14 143 psychic economy of writing", or illustrate "the C14 144 uncertainty inherent to language and subjectivity", is the C14 145 intermediary level of literary history. None the less, the book C14 146 more than fulfils its aims, opening up the direly impoverished C14 147 debate on Sylvia Plath to the salutary air of critical theory.

C14 148 C14 149 Young Artists in the marketplace

C14 150 John Cornall

C14 151 IN THE art world, August is the quiet season. In London, C14 152 private galleries tend to stay open, but only to put on mixed C14 153 exhibitions, of established and new 'on-trial' artists, showing C14 154 small, modestly priced works aimed at the small domestic market and C14 155 the passing buyer. In recent years, private galleries have also put C14 156 on summer exhibitions of graduate and student art.

C14 157 Though often packaged as if they were award shows, these C14 158 exhibitions serve the same commercial function as the mixed C14 159 exhibitions. The dealers hope for a higher than average turnover of C14 160 low priced works and they also have an eye out for promising new C14 161 individual sellers.

C14 162 The fourth annual Northern Graduates at the New C14 163 Academy Gallery until august 31 includes works by 26 graduates C14 164 chosen from Midland and Northern art schools and polytechnics by C14 165 Nairi Sahakian of the gallery and Paul Mason, head of sculpture at C14 166 Staffs Poly. There are some memorable works including two C14 167 intriguing <}_><-|>dyptych's<+|>diptychs<}/> by Cypriot painter, C14 168 Paul Kouroussis decorative paper-works by Fernanda Santos. But C14 169 mostly the works, jam-packed into a long room, are polite, sellable C14 170 pieces (cartoon cats, desktop post-modernism, landscapes with a C14 171 frisson of modernist style).

C14 172 The prices of the works in the New Academy range from pounds110 C14 173 to pounds 2,000. But though cheap, student art can also be big C14 174 business. This year the New Academy and others had to pick from C14 175 what Fresh Art had left behind. Fresh Art, C14 176 earlier in the summer, was a huge exhibition of student work put C14 177 forward from art colleges held at the Business Design Centre in C14 178 Islington. Fresh Art was like a trade fair for student C14 179 art. Leaflets and posters with the Fresh Art acid-house C14 180 type flower logo were widely distributed. A steep entrance of C14 181 pounds6 was charged and the organisers apparently took 50 per cent C14 182 of all sales.

C14 183 Showing near the New Academy, there are also two more student C14 184 exhibitions - less commercially biased than Fresh Art. C14 185 These are the British Telecom New Contemporaries at the ICA, C14 186 "a national showcase for the best of Britain's art students C14 187 and recent graduates", selected from over 1,200 entries, by C14 188 two European museum curators, and an artist. Alistair Maclean; and C14 189 Into the Nineties, at the Mall Galleries, showing work C14 190 from London's postgraduate colleges, the Slade, Chelsea, The RCA, C14 191 Goldsmiths' and the Royal Academy schools.

C14 192 Like last year, the New Contemporaries contained much slick C14 193 museum-sized internationalist art from the academy of C14 194 conceptualism. Neat parodies and gags neatly packaged. Some of the C14 195 work in the Mall Galleries, as might be expected from MA students, C14 196 was very good, notably Julia Stovell's green and orange painting, C14 197 'Eyes I dare not meet in dreams'.

C14 198 Overall, the Northern and Midland graduates' work looks C14 199 different next to the brashness and polish of the best publicised C14 200 work from London colleges. At Goldsmith's, for example, students C14 201 are encouraged to be street-wise - to avoid the bohemian manner of C14 202 the 1970s and to present themselves and their work in a C14 203 business-like way.

C14 204 Bernard Cohen, Slade professor, reflects anxiety about the C14 205 market pull on young artists when, in the catalogue to the C14 206 Nineties, he writes: "The educational policy of the C14 207 Slade does not concern itself with the marketplace. Our students C14 208 make Fine Art." Clyde Hopkins, head of painting at Chelsea, C14 209 makes a similar point, when he states that their course aims to C14 210 develop "practical and technical abilities as well as C14 211 professional awareness."

C14 212 But Cohen and Hopkins should also know that, post-art college, C14 213 there is little or no supporting system (meaning critics, C14 214 galleries, curators, funding) for serious progressive art based in C14 215 traditional fine art values. C14 216 C15 1 <#FLOB:C15\>Co-Producers with the Library Theatre Company C15 2 in I'm Not Rappaport at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, until C15 3 Saturday.

C15 4 Reviewed by STEPHEN SWAIN.

C15 5 Life and survival in the Park ...

C15 6 GREAT mysteries of life, number 1,217: Why did Herb Gardner C15 7 give this warm, witty and wise comedy such an off-putting C15 8 title?

C15 9 After all, the man's been getting it right for years, ever C15 10 since his first play, A Thousand Clowns.

C15 11 But those few who bothered to stir from the TV on a drab Bank C15 12 Holiday Monday were rewarded with a consummate display of comedic C15 13 talent from the two principals, Alan Dobie and Thomas Baptiste.

C15 14 Dobie plays Nat, a dapper octogenarian who decides to share a C15 15 bench in Central Park with equally elderly Midge, a black caretaker C15 16 - whether Midge likes it or not.

C15 17 Nat is economical with the truth of his many life stories - C15 18 maybe he's a CIA agent in deep cover, maybe he's a social C15 19 psychologist named Dr Friedrich Engels ... Maybe.

C15 20 Midge, a battered ex-boxer with cataracts, has a problem - he's C15 21 about to be turned out of his home and his job by yuppies.

C15 22 But Nat has the solution: "Who needs sight when you've C15 23 got vision?".

C15 24 By adapting yet another persona, as a sharp lawyer, he wipes C15 25 the floor with Danforth (Graeme Edler), the jogger who's come to C15 26 deliver Midge's marching orders.

C15 27 "Old people are the survivors," he tells him. C15 28 "They know something - they didn't just stay around to C15 29 spoil your party."

C15 30 So far, so good. More throwaway one-liners than an early Woody C15 31 Allen film, and the old guys appear to be kicking against the C15 32 pricks - and winning.

C15 33 But then shadows begin to fall across the park, first with C15 34 nasty little punk Gilley (Martin McDougall), then drug dealer the C15 35 Cowboy (David Crean).

C15 36 And both old men find that there is no real defence against the C15 37 young, the strong and the unprincipled.

C15 38 Nat has an additional problem, his put-upon daughter Clara C15 39 (Joanna Hole), who wants to put him into a "home for the C15 40 forgettable".

C15 41 She has presented him with grandchildren whose ethics revolve C15 42 around cable TV, and has herself become an estate agent, C15 43 "Queen of the condominiums".

C15 44 This is a long way from Nat's own socialist ideals, which have C15 45 kept him in fighting mood for his whole life.

C15 46 This well-turned production, directed by Eric Standidge, earned C15 47 the loudest applause from the smallest audience I've yet seen at C15 48 the Arts. You needed to have been there.

C15 49 C15 50 Scrawny voice is just too much these days

C15 51 SINGLES

C15 52 CRITTIE AND SWEETIE - Take Me In Your Arms And Love C15 53 Me: Everyone deserves the right to make a living but why did C15 54 Green Gartside have to choose music?

C15 55 He has a scrawny, little voice that was once judged to have C15 56 artistic interest but after all these years it's just too much.

C15 57 He dabbles unconvincingly with reggae and should really leave C15 58 Sweetie and his pals to it. Dreadful, and pretentious.

C15 59 DIED PRETTY - Godbless: While it's refreshing to see C15 60 a non-dance, non-pop band receiving vinyl space, it should really C15 61 go to a more deserving cause.

C15 62 TOP - Number One Dominator: Top make great play of C15 63 the fact that when they were in other hands they were not the main C15 64 song-writers. On this evidence it's hardly surprising C15 65 news.

C15 66 KINGOFTHEHILL - I Do U: Another gimmick - a band that C15 67 doesn't like any space between it's name. Hopeitdoesn'tcatchon.

C15 68 The title is straight to the point and so are the band. Bad C15 69 rock.

C15 70 YA KID YA - Awesome (You Are My Hero): Dive back down C15 71 the nearest sewer, it's another song about those mutant ninja C15 72 turtles.

C15 73 COOKIE CREW - Secrets (Of Success): Sad but true, C15 74 rappers are still saying "yo" on their records.

C15 75 Cookie Crew have previously released some dreadful thin records C15 76 but this one is a tasty sandwich with lots of filling.

C15 77 There's some unusual scat singing and it's their most muscular C15 78 and tuneful release so far. Nice one.

C15 79 MARILLION - No One Can: And we thought Chris de Burgh C15 80 was bad. Steve Hogarth sounds worryingly similar to De Burgh and C15 81 the plodding, dismal backing could almost be the Argentinian-born C15 82 Irishman with the French name.

C15 83 Housewives only and those people that light up cigarette C15 84 lighters at rock concerts.

C15 85 JELLYFISH - The Scarey Go Round EP: Los Angeles's C15 86 Jellyfish raid the vaults of 1960s music and put it back together C15 87 with great loving care.

C15 88 C15 89 With and without soul

C15 90 Albums available this week include:

C15 91 Paula Abdul - Spellbound (Virgin America): Three C15 92 plays in, and it's still hard to see what the title is about. Maybe C15 93 Vaguely Pleased would be better, because only diehards C15 94 will be left spellbound by Paula's efforts, even if they are C15 95 earnest.

C15 96 She has an ordinary, rather squeaky voice, and unlike other C15 97 female contemporaries such as Madonna she is reluctant to open up C15 98 her lungs and really cut loose.

C15 99 Most tracks are delicate, flimsy and often anaemic dance cuts. C15 100 In places she accidentally sounds like Cyndi Lauper, and after the C15 101 general mundanity of the rest, the gravelly bits and more C15 102 aggressive squeaks are perversely quite enticing.

C15 103 The critics, and there are many, will still claim Paula should C15 104 have stuck with dancing or cheer-leading, and she must release C15 105 stronger and more consistent records before that argument will C15 106 subside. (6/10)

C15 107 Diana Ross - The Force Behind the Power (EMI): C15 108 According to the press release, this is Diana's 58th album, which C15 109 must include her work with the Supremes, and the myriad C15 110 compilations.

C15 111 In recent years, her quality control has slipped somewhat, but C15 112 this outing shows a considerable tightening-up. The late 1980s C15 113 tweeness has been forsaken, and she has side-stepped the C15 114 temptation to embrace modern dance elements.

C15 115 Instead, her voice is rightfully shoved up in the mix and it's C15 116 still a wonderful and soulful experience, despite the shortage of C15 117 major league pop classics and a spot of interruptive musical C15 118 posturing.

C15 119 From the bouncy Change Of Heart to ballads like C15 120 Heavy Weather, this is a fine, accomplished set just the C15 121 same, and collectively it showcases a singer with a lasting C15 122 relevance.

C15 123 If you've got a note in your pocket, and are unsure which lady C15 124 to pick, Diana or Paula Abdul, stick with a tried and tested C15 125 formula and make it Lady Di. (7/10)

C15 126 Pete Wylie and Wah! - Infamy (Siren): He's been away C15 127 a long time and many thought he had finally talked himself to C15 128 death. Liaisons with the Farm and an appalling new haircut rightly C15 129 had many worried about the contents of his first LP in years.

C15 130 While it's pleasing to note that he has not succumbed to the C15 131 current dance fad, it's a long way short of his stunning early C15 132 music like The Story of the Blues. The guitars are turned C15 133 right up and sometimes it appears that he has tried too hard to C15 134 make a raw rock album.

C15 135 Too many tracks are swamped in instrumentation, so that both C15 136 Wylie's singing and choruses go astray in the melee. The lyrics C15 137 still have the naive charm of old and there are enough anthems to C15 138 incite the interest of fans but generally this is a 'Hey, I'm still C15 139 around' LP more than a thrilling new statement.

C15 140 Hang on in there with Wylie, he's a great British songwriter C15 141 currently treading water and nothing more, hopefully. (6/10)

C15 142 C15 143 Delights of tea, scones and poetry

C15 144 Rupert Brooke, written and performed by Mark Payton, at the Old C15 145 Vicarage, Grantchester. Reviewed by ALAN KERSEY.

C15 146 SULTRY, soporific, with woodpigeons bursting from the chestnuts C15 147 that once assured Brooke he was back home, this was indeed an C15 148 afternoon for tea, honeyed scones and poetry.

C15 149 But this one-man show brings out less familiar aspects - he C15 150 found Cambridge itself boring and was under no illusions that this C15 151 was heaven on earth.

C15 152 "All the best poetry about England is written when you C15 153 are out of the wretched place," he said.

C15 154 Nor was he as serious as the perceived image suggests - he even C15 155 jested about the slightly ridiculous way in which he died.

C15 156 An annual event, the performance was combined with a Sunday C15 157 afternoon rendition of Shakespearean Lovers in aid of a C15 158 students' charity to help the physically and mentally handicapped C15 159 and of the Sharon Allen Leukaemia Trust.

C15 160 For those having only a nodding acquaintance with his ode to C15 161 Grantchester the show was an education as well as an C15 162 entertainment.

C15 163 But the mood bleakened inevitably as his fever and the effects C15 164 of that fatal mosquito bite on his lip steadily worsened.

C15 165 C15 166 Delicate and classy performance marks the end of festival C15 167 era

C15 168 Melanie and Wayne Marshall Music School, West Road, Cambridge, C15 169 Sponsored by Sindall. Reviewed by James Day.

C15 170 FOR his final coup in six years as Cambridge Festival director, C15 171 Guy Woolfenden chose to go out not with brass blaring and strings C15 172 sawing away in some great orchestral showpiece.

C15 173 Instead, he engaged just about the most laid-back musical duo C15 174 imaginable.

C15 175 Melanie Marshall is no stranger to Cambridge, having appeared C15 176 as soloist with our major musical societies; but although her C15 177 brother Wayne has given organ recitals in the city, I don't C15 178 remember hearing him.

C15 179 Wayne's musicianship was amply demonstrated in his delicate C15 180 touch, supple rhythm, deft pointing of little details in the C15 181 lyrics, and the alert timing of the accompaniment to fit his C15 182 sister's justifiably elastic tempi in the repertoire she chose to C15 183 perform.

C15 184 Add to that some classy improvisations and you had a nice C15 185 wind-down from the more hectic activities of this year's C15 186 festival.

C15 187 Delighted C15 188 Together, they delighted the audience at West Road with an C15 189 evening of sophisticated cabaret, performed with a suitably C15 190 intimate approach, which ranged from Stephen Sondheim to negro C15 191 spirituals, with a dash of Bernstein, Gershwin, Jerome Kern and C15 192 Richard Rogers.

C15 193 Not forgetting Andrew Gant, ex-King's choral scholar and C15 194 up-and-coming singer and composer.

C15 195 Andrew's contributions stood up well in this company; and the C15 196 Marshall duo gave them the same polished attention as they devoted C15 197 to everything else.

C15 198 Some might have regretted the absence of waiters serving drinks C15 199 and a haze of two-in-the-morning smoke. The Marshalls managed the C15 200 right atmosphere without all that - I almost put 'jazz'.

C15 201 So the Woolfenden era ended on a quiet but definite high.

C15 202 Guy and Jane have stamped the festival with both character and C15 203 quality in their thematic approach and their choice of artistes and C15 204 programmes.

C15 205 I'm sure that the dynamic Nicholas Cleobury will make it even C15 206 more of a national event. Here's to 1992!

C15 207 C15 208 Folk spectacular goes out in style

C15 209 By GRAHAM McMORRIN

C15 210 THE 27th Abbot Ale Cambridge Folk Festival ended with a bang as C15 211 an international cavalcade of top names vied for thunderous C15 212 applause.

C15 213 More than 11,000 people crowded onto the Cherry Hinton Hall C15 214 site, many to witness Janis Ian's first UK appearance in a decade, C15 215 an honour she reserved for Cambridge.

C15 216 The Nashville singer said: "I'm trying to look fairly C15 217 cool, but I keep wiping my hands on my pants and destroying the C15 218 whole thing."

C15 219 But she far from destroyed the material, as standing ovations C15 220 greeted a selection from her Between the Lines classic C15 221 album, along with such new material as the warm and moving C15 222 Stolen Fire.

C15 223 The high spot of the festival was a widely proclaimed set from C15 224 'New Waif' New Yorker Suzanne Vega.

C15 225 It was standing room only as Vega, one of folk's superstars, C15 226 stepped up to the microphone and belted into her early hit C15 227 Marlene on the Wall.

C15 228 The traditionally wry irony and casual delivery of her lyrics C15 229 quickly entranced a crowded audience.

C15 230 Such sadly sentimental lyrics soon gave way to the C15 231 tough-hearted strumming of Cracking, with its almost whimsical C15 232 refrain of love lost and love just thrown away.

C15 233 Harsh tempo and angry chords marked her new material, C15 234 particularly the haunting Behind Straight Lines.

C15 235 The applause and enthusiasm was massive, but I was left with C15 236 the thought that not much had changed, and for Vega it was all just C15 237 another song in just another place.

C15 238 Yesterday saw the return of Irish folk stars Clannad, after an C15 239 absence from Cambridge of over 13 years.

C15 240 They strode through Donegal love songs, led by Maire Brennan's C15 241 powerful lead vocal.

C15 242 The climax came with the pathos and finely crafted C15 243 Something To Believe In, which proved an excellent C15 244 showcase for the backing vocals of Bridlin Brennan and June C15 245 Boyce.

C15 246 C16 1 <#FLOB:C16\>Poetic turn of wit

C16 2 English Serenata/ Civic Theatre, Mansfield

C16 3 THE Tango-Pasodoble of William Walton's Facade C16 4 took on extra colour when Susana Walton, the composer's C16 5 Argentinian-born widow, appeared in a Mansfield Festival C16 6 performance at the town's Civic Theatre last night.

C16 7 Not that Lady Walton believes in "additional caprices C16 8 or embellishments." As she says of this brilliant 'Twenties C16 9 work, all the entertaining is done by Edith Sitwell's poetry in C16 10 tandem with the music.

C16 11 Book C16 12 Lady Walton had opened the three-part evening with thirty C16 13 minutes of reminiscences - her first meeting with William, his C16 14 instant proposal of marriage, and her initiation into his circle of C16 15 talented friends and patrons.

C16 16 It's all, of course, in her recent book, along with much more. C16 17 But here was an opportunity to experience her wit and vitality at C16 18 first hand.

C16 19 Fellow-reciter Richard Baker then introduced members of the C16 20 English Serenata in a group of three pieces - all, like C16 21 Facade, with the accent on wind instruments.

C16 22 Mozart's Quintet in E flat, K452, for piano, oboe, C16 23 clarinet, horn and bassoon, dovetails phrases that are shared more C16 24 or less equally between the performers. In the Serenata's well C16 25 focused rendering, Michael Revell's beautiful horn playing C16 26 particularly caught the ear.

C16 27 Poulenc's piquant Sextet, a 'Thirties piece which adds a C16 28 flute to the Mozart ensemble, is even more of a concert hall C16 29 rarity. Its three movements threw up deliberate references to C16 30 Mozart, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

C16 31 Patchwork C16 32 A patchwork quilt, but seamlessly designed and absorbing to C16 33 listen to.

C16 34 The same players contrived to alternate as a percussive rhythm C16 35 section in the course of Rory Boyle's Cinderella, commissioned C16 36 for the 1990 Solihull festival.

C16 37 Definitely another tongue-in-cheek composition, in which the C16 38 Ugly Sisters literally lose their heads, and Cinderella gets C16 39 hitched to a jam-maker. Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes C16 40 provided the text.

C16 41 PETER PALMER

C16 42 C16 43 Sounds comical

C16 44 A CROSS between Gilbert and Sullivan and Toytown, there's a C16 45 not-to-be-missed comic opera coming our way when Opera North makes C16 46 another welcome visit to Nottingham Theatre Royal.

C16 47 Among the bicentenary Mozarts in abundance this year can be C16 48 spotted two performances of jollity and high jinks with C16 49 L'Etoile. (November 6 and 8). It's staged as a tribute to C16 50 its composer Emmanuel Chabrier on his 150th anniversary.

C16 51 L'Etoile (The Star, or, as W.S. Gilbert had it in his C16 52 version, Lucky Star) whisks the audience off to a garish C16 53 world where a king lurks disguised as a dustbin and where a C16 54 princess elopes in a balloon which explodes over a lake. The C16 55 bedraggled girl totters in to explain: "It went bang C16 56 ..."

C16 57 The opera gives Chabrier a glorious excuse to write witty and C16 58 melodious music with sly parodies of such heavyweights as C16 59 Wagner.

C16 60 It's all about King Ouf I who believes everything the stars C16 61 foretell. To avoid premature death he has to take care of Lazuli, C16 62 an amorous pedlar in love with the king's daughter and whose C16 63 destiny is linked with his by the star of the title.

C16 64 This hilarious fantasy marks an operatic director's debut for C16 65 Phyllida Lloyd, recently responsible for the Royal Shakespeare C16 66 Company's production of Virtuoso.

C16 67 EMRYS BRYSON

C16 68 C16 69 Peta and Pete get in the beat

C16 70 FOLK BEAT WITH ROY HARRIS

C16 71 TONIGHT'S the night for the pair with the soundalike names at C16 72 Beeston. Peta Webb and Pete Cooper make a sterling duet with an C16 73 impressive combination of fiddle and song.

C16 74 Peta Webb, slight of stature but mighty in vocal power, is one C16 75 of the best stylists around. Her keen-edged voice with its hints of C16 76 the late Margaret Barry is an instrument in itself. Peter Cooper C16 77 has a background in American style fiddle playing as an accompanist C16 78 to Holly Tannen for some years.

C16 79 His all-round ability has proved up to the task of backing C16 80 Webb's very different repertoire, the result being a very classy C16 81 act indeed.

C16 82 Please note that the Scheme Folk Band continue with their very C16 83 valuable workshop type sessions at the Crown, Beeston, on Tuesday C16 84 nights. The open-floor concept they hold to at the Crown offers a C16 85 conducive atmosphere for newer players to get into folk music C16 86 alongside more experienced players.

C16 87 C16 88 Backing off live bands

C16 89 CLUB NIGHT WITH REG ENDERBY

C16 90 I GOT out to see a few solos and duos over the week and was a C16 91 little disappointed to see all of them using backing tapes. What is C16 92 happening to live music?

C16 93 There seem to be more and more live bands giving up the ghost C16 94 because they cannot compete in price with the likes of the C16 95 aforementioned who, helped with today's technology, manage to sound C16 96 like a band.

C16 97 If venues continue to accept increased use of taped backing C16 98 then I'm afraid there is going to be a severe shortage of good C16 99 bands in the near future.

C16 100 On a brighter note I got to see a new live band from Leicester C16 101 by the name of Dirty Duvet, who are a breath of fresh air.

C16 102 Alternative C16 103 A lively stage show <}_><-|>complimented<+|>complemented<}/> C16 104 with lighting, various brass instrumentation, outrageous costumes C16 105 and a great attitude of fun and enjoyment is returned with equal C16 106 enthusiasm by their audience.

C16 107 Their show is based mainly on rock classics performed with C16 108 Dirty Duvet's own interpretations as an alternative to how they C16 109 might have been performed by the likes of Screaming Lord Sutch or C16 110 spoof band Spinal Tap.

C16 111 I look forward to seeing more of them as they make their C16 112 assault on the Nottingham clubs.

C16 113 Poppy Appeals continue throughout the Royal British Legion C16 114 clubs and on Wednesday November 6 entertainment secretary Dougie C16 115 Ward has a show on at the Clifton RBL with vocalist Julie Keightley C16 116 and refreshingly live backing from Roy Marriott.

C16 117 I was asked recently if rock horror show Nightmare are in the C16 118 area soon and I am pleased to inform you that they can be seen at C16 119 Rainworth MW on Sunday November 3.

C16 120 Bizarre C16 121 This act is not for the <}_><-|>squeemish<+|><}/>squeamish. I C16 122 have seen human hangings, snakes, blood and guts as just some of C16 123 their bizarre antics, but with Halloween night just around the C16 124 corner it couldn't be a better time to see the scariest show in C16 125 town.

C16 126 C16 127 MARRINER RULES THE AIR WAVES

C16 128 Academy of St Martin in the Fields/ Royal Concert Hall

C16 129 SIR Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields C16 130 enjoyed one of the warmest receptions I can recall for a British C16 131 orchestra when they played at the Royal Concert Hall on Friday.

C16 132 Doubtless this had much to do with their recording reputation. C16 133 Few people who have collected classical discs - or just tuned in to C16 134 Radio 3 - can be unaware of the partnership.

C16 135 Diversity C16 136 So Friday's concert was a chance to thank Marriner and his C16 137 players for more than thirty years of top flight music-making.

C16 138 It also marked the climax of the Evening Post Amadeus C16 139 series, which has seen a diversity of stylistic approaches to the C16 140 question of performing Mozart.

C16 141 The evening opened with Mozart's festive Haffner Symphony. C16 142 By current standards the string section seemed a bit on the heavy C16 143 side, hence rather lacking in subtlety. But the minuet's trio was C16 144 nicely executed, and Marriner kept things firmly together in a C16 145 hell-for-leather finale.

C16 146 Aristocratic C16 147 Both the symphony and Mozart piano concertos like the one in A C16 148 major, K.488, come very close to the world of the composer's C16 149 operas.

C16 150 In the case of K.488, it's the world of The Marriage of C16 151 Figaro. Aristocratic in her playing, as in appearance, Imogen C16 152 Cooper displayed her usual verve and clarity at the piano.

C16 153 She had the audience hanging on every beautifully judged note C16 154 in the widely-spaced theme of the Adagio movement. In the C16 155 final Allegro, the Academy's first bassoon briefly shared the C16 156 honours with its virtuosity.

C16 157 Its next-door neighbour, the clarinet, eventually stole the C16 158 show in a skilfully piloted performance of Mendelssohn's The C16 159 Hebrides, the second half opener.

C16 160 Like most maestros, Marriner opted for the revised version of C16 161 Schumann's Fourth Symphony, although the lighter scoring of the C16 162 original can make a more Mendelssohnian impression.

C16 163 Either way, it begs to be heard more often, especially when C16 164 delivered with such panache. Totally Schumannesque was the eerie C16 165 prelude to the last movement. The concert ended with a similar C16 166 brilliance - only more romantic - to that with which it began.

C16 167 PETER PALMER

C16 168 C16 169 BLUE MOODS?

C16 170 David Badiel and Rob Newman/

C16 171 Nottingham Polytechnic

C16 172 HALF the Mary Whitehouse Experience - the half that mattered - C16 173 played a full house at the Poly last night. But it wasn't as good C16 174 as their last visit to the region in the spring.

C16 175 Watching David Badiel and Rob Newman is rather like undergoing C16 176 police interrogation. There's the hard one and the soft one, in the C16 177 shape of two alternative comedians who take the cult of personality C16 178 to the limit.

C16 179 Friendly C16 180 David Badiel, the soft one, comes up with some friendly and C16 181 familiar Jewish jokes and reminds us all what the original Yiddish C16 182 insult Schmuck means.

C16 183 His pal, Rob Newman, is a lot tougher. His range covers the C16 184 fact that Professor Stanley Unwin might be in league with the devil C16 185 because the gobbeldy-gook<&|>sic! used in his act resembles the C16 186 kind of backwards-talk allegedly favoured by heavy metal bands, C16 187 then takes in far more topical comments about the current musical C16 188 scene and his own failure to be a New Man.

C16 189 Funny C16 190 Material from the BBC-2 series was much in evidence - with blue C16 191 variations tailored for a student audience and a familiar closing C16 192 sketch parodying the South Bank Show failing to live up C16 193 to expectations. But you don't go to see them for that. You go to C16 194 see half the Mary Whitehouse Experience because they're C16 195 darned funny - and because at a live gig they can relish the kind C16 196 of political comment and profanity that is still banned on TV.

C16 197 CATHERINE ARNOLD ADAMS

C16 198 C16 199 Kylie turns on the style

C16 200 Kylie Minogue/Royal Concert Hall

C16 201 SHE may be tiny, but Kylie's pop packs an almighty wallop.

C16 202 And she received an almighty reception for her first, long C16 203 overdue performance in Nottingham.

C16 204 The capacity crowd - Kool Kat trendies rubbing shoulders with C16 205 tots and teenies - couldn't have cheered louder or danced more C16 206 furiously if their lives depended on it.

C16 207 And Kylie, out to shock as well as to sock it to 'em, couldn't C16 208 have worn less if she'd tried.

C16 209 Clearly she's been raiding Madonna's undie drawer. Panty C16 210 girdles, <}_><-|>miniscule<+|>minuscule<}/> bra tops, thongs and C16 211 just about anything see-through constituted John Galliano's costume C16 212 design.

C16 213 Fickle bid

C16 214 You could just about see through Kylie's concept, too - a C16 215 fickle bid to out-raunch her idol.

C16 216 But if you're going to rip someone off when you're ripping off C16 217 your clothes, who better than Madonna?

C16 218 And if you're going to put on a show to prove that you're not C16 219 just a record company puppet, what better way to do it than C16 220 this?

C16 221 Kylie showed us she could sing, dance and really get an C16 222 audience going.

C16 223 She deserves an award, as well, for value for money: Nearly C16 224 every song she's ever done crammed into 90 high-energy minutes with C16 225 barely a pause for breath.

C16 226 Some of the well-trendy dance routines - Kylie at the centre of C16 227 a five-strong troupe - echoed those in Whitney Houston's recent C16 228 show, but without the showbiz schmaltz.

C16 229 Good time

C16 230 And while Madonna, who also might have spotted a couple of C16 231 familiar dance steps, is all about politics, feminism and C16 232 thought-provoking controversy, Kylie is simply and purely about C16 233 having a good time.

C16 234 She sang the title track of her Enjoy Yourself album C16 235 early in the set. By the end, I can't imagine anyone claiming they C16 236 hadn't.

C16 237 SIMON BUTTON

C16 238 C16 239 Songs evoke Tudor times

C16 240 Willoughby Consort/ Holme Pierrepont Hall

C16 241 A MERE three centuries or so since their last performance at C16 242 Holme Pierrepont Hall, songs by the former house composer Thomas C16 243 Greaves were heard there on Saturday.

C16 244 Tenor Michael Sanderson sang them affectingly as part of a C16 245 recital by the Willoughby Consort, divided between music of the C16 246 Tudor and the Stuart eras.

C16 247 Expertise C16 248 The Consort has been playing together for some time, and its C16 249 entertainment value matches its expertise. The quincentenary of the C16 250 birth of Henry VIII was a good pretext for opening with items from C16 251 a manuscript named after him, including a Cornish hunting song.

C16 252 Stewart McCoy played fantasies from the lute book of Wollaton C16 253 Hall's Sir Francis Willoughby during the first half.

C16 254 C17 1 <#FLOB:C17\>Star most impressed

C17 2 By Nancy Oatridge-Budd

C17 3 ON THE occasion of their 10th anniversary the Bodmin Players C17 4 AOS presented, for the second time, the Rodgers and Hammerstein C17 5 musical 'Carousel' at the Foster Hall, Bodmin.

C17 6 The stage producer was Chris Batters, a founder member of the C17 7 society and the musical director was David Cheetham, a comparative C17 8 new-comer to Cornwall. Both Chris and David are to be congratulated C17 9 on the results of all their hard work.

C17 10 This was a most colourful production, with lovely scenery and C17 11 costumes. The chorus and dancers were excellent and together with C17 12 the orchestra they carried the show along at a good pace. It was a C17 13 pity that in the spoken sections the pace and timing were allowed C17 14 to drag.

C17 15 The principal characters sang their solos beautifully and fully C17 16 deserved the applause they received. But in one or two instances a C17 17 little more thought about the characters to be portrayed and the C17 18 acting involved would have made their performances even better.

C17 19 At the end of the evening the president, Mr. Gerald Thomas made C17 20 a short speech thanking the performers and all the helpers who had C17 21 done such wonderful work backstage. Without them, he said, the show C17 22 could not have taken place.

C17 23 Plans are already being made for the 1992 production which will C17 24 be Calamity Jane.

C17 25 Among the audience at the Friday night performance was singing C17 26 star Frank Ifield who later drew the raffle and went backstage to C17 27 meet the cast and sign autographs. He told the Players it had been C17 28 an excellent show and that he did not realise there was such talent C17 29 in the area.

C17 30 C17 31 Susan taps inner strength

C17 32 WOMEN HAVE been cheering in the aisles in America at the highly C17 33 controversial movie Thelma And Louise described by one C17 34 critic as "a post feminist howl". And no-one could C17 35 be more pleased at the reaction than the film's star, Susan C17 36 Sarandon.

C17 37 Scottish director Ridley Scott is clear about why he picked C17 38 Sarandon to play the pivotal role of Louise in the story of two C17 39 women who break out of their smalltown repressive lives and cut a C17 40 swathe through a landscape of flawed males. Scott felt Sarandon was C17 41 "a ballsy Lady".

C17 42 "She's a very smart woman and always had a selection of C17 43 material with some kind of a strong subtext to it," he C17 44 says. In Thelma And Louise, the red-headed actress with the Bette C17 45 Davis eyes plays a working class woman with a lot of inner rage who C17 46 provides the drive for her and Geena Davis's Thelma to break out C17 47 and head for the south western desert in a 1966 Thunderbird C17 48 convertible.

C17 49 It's the kind of buddy movie we've seen before but this time C17 50 the central characters are two women. The film's violent depiction C17 51 of retribution for molesting males has had a fantastic response C17 52 from women in America with critics labelling it a feminist version C17 53 of the Rambo syndrome. "What we are seeing is a sort of C17 54 post-feminist howl," suggested Peter Rainer of the Los C17 55 Angeles Times. "It's a sisterhood bash-a-thon."

C17 56 To Sarandon, it's about women discovering their own inner C17 57 strength. For an actress who put her reputation on the line by C17 58 opposing the Gulf War when it was still popular and by staying true C17 59 to traditional liberal values during the Reagan decade, it's C17 60 obvious that self-determination is an important aspect in her C17 61 life.

C17 62 Thelma And Louise is likely to give a sizeable boost to C17 63 Sarandon's career. Callie Khouri's screenplay gives more than a C17 64 hint to the notion that women need a certain separatism in order to C17 65 be themselves in a very male-dominated world. The 44-year-old C17 66 actress has come close several times to establishing mainstream C17 67 commercial appeal, and yet her penchant for pursuing a very C17 68 individual path has just as quickly drawn her back to relative C17 69 obscurity. "I haven't been offered a lot of mainstream C17 70 parts and I guess Hollywood is going to change its attitude towards C17 71 middle-aged women only if it makes a profit changing. They're not C17 72 going to change through some sort of enlightenment," C17 73 Sarandan asserts.

C17 74 Hers has been a rather odd career path, with some notable C17 75 performances in the likes of The Witches of Eastwick, Atlantic City C17 76 and Bull Durham.

C17 77 C17 78 Choir welcomes Canadian friends

C17 79 THE County of Cornwall Male Choir was fully engaged during the C17 80 weekend of the 5th, 6th, and 7th July.

C17 81 On Friday evening, members of the Choir and The Ladies C17 82 Committee, gathered in Plymouth to welcome The Vancouver Welsh C17 83 Mens<&|>sic! Choir and their supporters from British Columbia, C17 84 Canada, who are on a tour of the U.K. During a reception at the C17 85 Moat House Hotel friendships and acquaintances were renewed because C17 86 during April 1991 The Vancouver Welsh Mens<&|>sic! Choir were hosts C17 87 during the County of Cornwall Male Choir's very successful tour of C17 88 Canada and North America.

C17 89 On Saturday evening both choirs and soloist, Margaret Holden, C17 90 (Mezzo) gave a most entertaining concert to a near capacity C17 91 audience at the Guildhall, Plymouth, in the presence of the Lord C17 92 Mayor, Mrs Elizabeth Easton and other civic C17 93 <}_><-|>dignatories<+|>dignitaries<}/>. The concert was organised C17 94 by the Plymouth Music Trust and received a standing ovation.

C17 95 On Sunday evening, the two choirs performed at the Cornwall C17 96 Coliseum to a large audience which included the High Sheriff of C17 97 Cornwall, Mr David Trefry and other County and local civic C17 98 dignatories in support of the Hall For Cornwall Appeal. Soloist was C17 99 Peter Julian.

C17 100 The first half of each concert afforded the opportunity to hear C17 101 music new to West Country audiences. The Vancouver Welsh C17 102 Mens<&|>sic! Choir brought with them songs and choruses from Canada C17 103 and North America which were sensitively performed under the C17 104 Musical Directorship of Robin Thomas and accompanied on piano by C17 105 the very talented Miss Miho Kuroki, from Japan, who is studying at C17 106 British Columbia University. George Roberts a very fine Baritone, C17 107 sang various solo parts within the Choir's C17 108 <}_><-|>repetoire<+|>repertoire<}/> and Vincent Gogag, a Canadian C17 109 Indian played the Indian Drum.

C17 110 During the second half of each concert, the County of Cornwall C17 111 Male Choir under the Musical Directorship of Nick Hart, C17 112 <}_><-|>acompanied<+|>accompanied<}/> by Dennis Osborne and Judith C17 113 Mumby, gave an exciting performance of part of their C17 114 <}_><-|>repetoire<+|>repertoire<}/> which included the Folk song C17 115 'Away from the roll of the sea' by Macgillivray which was C17 116 <}_><-|>aquired<+|>acquired<}/> by the Choir when on their 1990 C17 117 tour in Canada.

C17 118 Both choirs <}_><-|>cobined<+|>combined<}/> the close of each C17 119 concert for Welsh Hymn favourites, 'Morte Christe and Gwahoddiod' C17 120 and 'Trelawney', which the Vancouver Welsh Mens<&|>sic! Choir had C17 121 learnt before coming on tour. The Vancouver Welsh Mens<&|>sic! C17 122 Choir is now continuing its tour in Wales.

C17 123 C17 124 GUARDIAN At the Movies

C17 125 PLAYING the home-loving little woman isn't the normal image C17 126 associated with a Hollywood movie mogul. But when it comes to C17 127 producing films, actress Sally Field admits: "I'd rather C17 128 being<&|>sic! making jam." The 44-year-old star has turned C17 129 in some powerful portraits of defiant women facing up to sizeable C17 130 odds in films like Norma Rae and Places In The Heart.

C17 131 Now she's also making films and proving she has a good eye for C17 132 what works for others on screen. A few years ago, before many C17 133 people had heard of Julia Roberts, budding producer Field lined the C17 134 young actress up for Dying Young and told the industry: C17 135 "No-one knows Julia Roberts yet, but you will." And C17 136 sure enough, they did. In fact, Field is becoming something of a C17 137 behind-the-scenes star in the film world, although she's back in C17 138 front of the cameras for her latest role in the comedy C17 139 Soapdish.

C17 140 Juggling the demands of being a mother, actress and producer is C17 141 a tall order by any standards and Field is the first to admit to C17 142 the strain. "I am not a terribly strident or aggressive woman, and C17 143 being shy I found it very hard to get into the arena of producing C17 144 films. "I would rather go home and make jam and be a girl C17 145 which is still the honest truth," she maintains.

C17 146 On the other hand, the actress is very clear about why her C17 147 screen career has proved so durable. It boils down to talent. C17 148 "When people say I'm a survivor, I feel it underestimates C17 149 why I'm here. I don't think I've made it to here because I simply C17 150 have the ability to keep my head above the water. I'm here because C17 151 I have talent." Field says she has turned to producing C17 152 films simply because that's the only way she can get any control of C17 153 her career. She certainly had a lot to do with getting her latest C17 154 starring role off the ground.

C17 155 The actress had always wanted to appear in a film about the C17 156 world of actors. So when the script for Soapdish, a satire on C17 157 the lives and absurdities of the cast of a fictitious daytime C17 158 television soap opera came along, she worked hard to keep the C17 159 project on track in the face of all the usual Hollywood production C17 160 melodramas.

C17 161 With Kevin Kline (best known for his role in A Fish Called C17 162 Wanda) and Whoopi Goldberg along for the ride, Soapdish features C17 163 Field as a celebrity soap queen who's frightened of growing older C17 164 and has to make regular tours of <}_><-|>surburban<+|>suburban<}/> C17 165 shopping <}_><-|>mails<+|>malls<}/> to boost her frayed ego. Field C17 166 believes her portrait of a crabby star who chews up those around C17 167 her because she is really miserable and scared inside highlights C17 168 the pain and agonies that can go on behind the cameras.

C17 169 "It's about actors whose soap opera identities have C17 170 overwhelmed their private lives. My own experience is not quite C17 171 like this, but there is something of the absolute paranoia and C17 172 utterly insecure life in Celeste's terror of getting older and C17 173 being pushed aside by the younger crop." A none-too-subtle C17 174 dig at soap operas, Soapdish is a rare comic outing for Field. In C17 175 spite of the fact she made her debut acting in lightweight C17 176 television series like The Flying Nun, she has made her name in C17 177 tense dramas like Not Without My Daughter.

C17 178 "Comedy is not really my territory, I don't feel as C17 179 comfortable doing it as I do with drama," she admits. It's C17 180 probably not surprising that Field feels more of an affinity with C17 181 drama because her own life has certainly been no cakewalk. She may C17 182 talk enthusiastically about how good her second marriage is (she C17 183 has a three-year-old son with film producer Alan Greisman and two C17 184 sons in their late teens by a previous marriage), but there have C17 185 been some difficult times in her past. Field is still touched by C17 186 the decade of eating disorders, confusion and loneliness that once C17 187 afflicted her.

C17 188 C17 189 New releases by MATT VINYL

C17 190 VAN MORRISON

C17 191 HYMNS TO THE SILENCE (POLYDOR)

C17 192 WHAT am I doing reviewing this? Surely you know by now that C17 193 this man is not so much a musical genius as a veritable god for me. C17 194 Such is my bias that even if Van The Man produced a double album C17 195 <}_><-|>narrting<+|>narrating<}/> the telephone directory, I'd be C17 196 the first in the queue to buy it. What is it about this man who C17 197 commands such spiritual power through his songs and C17 198 compositions?

C17 199 Last year's Enlightenment album was difficult to follow ... but C17 200 to come back with a CD of such calibre is a mark and measure of the C17 201 true <}_><-|>qwuality<+|>quality<}/> of his experience and C17 202 expertise. <}_><-|>Noone<+|>No-one<}/> can blend or harmonise C17 203 gospel, soul, Irish country, jazz and folk into one so well or C17 204 contrast gutsy, growling songs next to the spoken word without C17 205 sounding <}_><-|>petentious<+|>pretentious<}/> or in conflict. C17 206 Van's music is about faith, love or the search for love in a deep C17 207 spiritualistic belief firmly embedded in music. Hymns To The C17 208 Silence is a homage to that faith. Not with syrupy sentimentality, C17 209 but with warmth, conviction and a secure glow which emanates from C17 210 all the songs. Outstanding tracks are too many to mention but Take C17 211 Me Back takes me back to the brilliant repetitive lyrics of C17 212 Summertime In England and the title track and the spoken, C17 213 reflective On Hyndford Street must be among the finest - only to C17 214 be topped by the emotional Carrying A Torch. First class production C17 215 and assistance from Candy Dulfer, The C17 216 <}_><-|>Chieftans<+|>Chieftains<}/> and now resident keyboard man C17 217 Georgie Fame, Hymns To The Silence must rate as a Van Morrison C17 218 classic.

C17 219