The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 78

11 0m SUNDAY 4J ONE 1.995 pirtaiDi) if Wong ffoiwotoiifls iiiimlinmin 1 1 While Wilde glitters arid Richard III amuses, Michael Coveney gongs Redgrave's ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA The worm turns: Vanessa Redgrave's Antony and Cleopatra fails to excite. Photograph by Noil Libbert a fierce rodent and is certainly the speediest Crookback since Antony Sher whose bearded, glinting demeanour Britton sometimes suggests. An opening masque of the death of Henry VI is followed by Britton's eruption from beneath the stage: near-naked, with a bandaged hump and spindly legs, he dons his garb while spitting out the first soliloquy and threatening the North London heavens ('all the clouds that loured upon our house'). Britton's psychotic and very funny performance is framed in a metallic, scaffolded set by Tanya McCalliri, with a mobile staircase, adaptable red drapes and a good deployment by Cox of actors through the auditorium. The company operates organically in masks, switching Lancastrian red roses on their armbands to Yorkist white, and floating the avenging Richmond (Peter de Jersey) on a sea of ghosts above the sweating, sleeping tyrant at Bosworth Field.

The Importance of On the centenary year of The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde's perennial comedy of paradox, inversion and confused identity is proving as lively as ever. First, there was the English Touring Theatre production (this welk in the new Lawrence Badey Theatre, Huddersfield) which decoded the homosexual slang of the play around Lady Bracknell in drag. And now the Birmingham Rep reverts to more stately convention with a well articulated, traditional version directed by Terry Hands. The vast Birmingham arena is covered by0 designer Mark Bailey in green carpet, with an adaptable wrought iron structure littered, in Algy's Half Moon Street flat, with cushions, carpets, hookahs and screens. The second and third acts in the Hertfordshire manor house expand beneath a blue sky with a tumult of rose bushes.

This spaciousness demands, and receives, well delineated performances. Philip Franks's silly-ass, somewhat irritating Algy bounds, on from his keyboard, striking a triumphant pose, which his manservant ignores and Which he promptly repeats. There is no chance of confusing this bug-eyed, self-obsessed pup with the grave, deliberate Jack of Roger Allam. Slighdy at odds with his surroundings, Allam's superbly observed Jack fails to find an ashtray in his friend's Oriental den; is offered a seat where there are no chairs; is ignored for minutes on end by Lady Bracknell; and is left holding the cups and saucers which rattle like shivering teeth when Gwendolen insists that only the name of 'Ernest' carries the.right seductive vibrations. Allam finds new notes of dry exasperation throughout, exploding finally in the teacakes and muffins mix-up.

Recent Lady Bracknells have accentuated the grotesque in the role. Maggie Smith was a scheming, tyrannical whirlwind in dove-grey silk and flyaway hat, while Bette Bourne (for English Touring) was a sedate and drawling invocation of the Edith EvansMartita Hunt school of magisterial haughtiness. Here, Barbara Leigh-Hunt presents an elegant dowager in ostrich feathers and glittering black attire, reappearing as a less Vehement, coolly clad visitor in the country. Smith brilliandy suggested vulnerability beneath the tension as the plot unravelled; Leigh-Hunt merely reinforces excellent first impressions in a different context. The high point, as is Lady Bracknell's interview with Jack over his foundling origins in the Lost Property at Victoria Station.

The Becher's Brook of the dreaded 'handbag' is beautifully negotiated with a silent mouthing and a series of aghast reactions on the sofa. Gwendolen is forthrighdy played by Abigail Cruttenden, Cecily more sirriperingly by Jacqueline Defferary, with Rosalind Knight as an admirable Miss Prism and Patrick Godfrey a conciliatiory Chasuble in a college scarf and beaming aspect. This would have been a good.year to use more of the original four-act version; Wilde threw out a lot of baby with the bath water when his producer, George Alexander, insisted on cuts. In a token gesture, Hands prefers the original ending of Act One, with Algy exclaiming how much he loves nonsense. Also, Lady B's discussion of the age of society women is enriched by the restored observation that Lady Dumbleton, who has been 35 for years, is 'very much admired.

the The production was clamorously received on Tuesday night, and moves down to London's Old Vic at the end of the month. What to make of Vanessa Redgrave in her own, quite appalling, production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Riverside Studios? You wait patiendy for the fifth act arias, which are delivered with rapt intensity. But the dream of Antony whose 'voice was propertied as all the tuned spheres' could not possibly refer to Paul Buder's catastrophically inadequate soldier hero. Her robe and crown at the last are a curious Edwardian Ascot outfit of gold Iame yellow chiffon train and a flat wide-brimmed hat. The deadly worm is a wriggly serpent and the whole thing turns into a music-hall novelty act.

This most glorious of texts is mangled beyond recognition, and. played on a hideous rubble-strewn exterior. The Romans (except Pompey and Lepidus) are all black, the Egyptians white, a decent enough idea. TJhere is a lot of celebration of the death of Fulvia. Lepidus, whom Stephen MacDonald plays in a white beard that sticks out from his face like a frozen skate, goes literally blind drunk at the party.

David Harewood is a sturdy Enobarbus, Aicha Nathalie Kossoko an affecting Octavia. But Redgrave's Cleopatra, her third, is sunk in its surroundings, a bundle of misdirected energy and charm that barely draws on the depths of the play, or indeed her own reserves of radiance and talent. Alongside this muddle, in the second Riverside studio, Max Frisch'sThe Fire Raisers (1958) at least re-invents the point, of 'the Being Earnest Birmingham Rep (0121-236 4455); Antony and Cleopatra and The Fire Raisers Riverside Studios, London W6 (0181-748 3354); Richard III Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, London NW1 (0171-486 2431) Brian Cox's speedy (well under three hours), cleverly cut production of Richard III. The title role is taken by Jasper Britton, a lean, wiry, slighdy disabled actor (he twisted his foot in a childhood accident) who rips into the play like Redgraves' Moving Theatre season, if not the passion. Without wishing to put you off, I'd say the play is both an anti-fascist morality and a Brechtian parable of death and destruction to the bourgeoisie, specifically Mr and Mrs Gotdieb Biederman.

Gottlieb (Malcolm Tierney, erring on the side of dullness) is a magnate in hair-restorers whose former colleague, a sacked inventor, has committed suicide. His wife, Babette (Frances de la Tour in irresistible, carefully understated, form) is a colluding, hard-hearted snob. In a lovely touch, she implies hubby has dandruff, brushing his collar without fuss. The rise of a new fascist terror (originally, the Nazis) is mirrored in the insidious occupation of the Biedermans' attic by a pair of criminal arsonists. The more blatant their tactics they install petrol caiis, wiring, incendiary devices the more craven their hosts' hospitality.

Although the Bolivian director Lenka Udovicki sets far too sleepy a pace, die play, and its surreal post-conflagration epilogue in Hell, hits home as a topical warning against the liberal toleration of new political terrors on the doorstep. The summer sqason in Regent's Park is off to a. flying start with To order any of the music reviewed call free on 0800 45 41 57 Or post a chcquo made payable to: The Observer Music CD Direct, Froopost (NWG085 P0 Box 3317, London NW.1 9RG Fnx: 017.1. 267 6800 Whon orcUirlntf by fax, nmiill or print, plowo Innludo: your muslo cliolcon, nunm, itcMroan, d'nytlmo tolopltono number, credit oarij numbor incl oKiilrydntu. e-mail W00t0.127Wcompusarva.cDm.