The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 38

38 OBSERVER SUNDAY 29 MAY 1 988 RETURN OF THE DADO i Mm The Dado is not extinct Far from it In the current issue of the magazine we explore this form of wall decoration for today's interiors. Available at Newsagents now. iMttitHifciifliii'. mSmiK'ttmM bulk. a smudqad canny smite tempers the force of the ominously held II JUNE-JULY A Russian summer THE TEMPEST BOTH MICHAEL GAMBON and Jonathan Pryee nave very large hands.

In Michael Blake more's production of Uncle Vaayt (Vaudeville), sharply translated by Michael Frayn, they help to cut the shape of Chekhov's play. The Impulsive gestures and visionary dark eyes of Fryce's Or Astrdv propose the amplitude of an existence fir beyond the confines of Russian provincial lift; they: threaten to knock Gambon as Uncle Vanya, Branagh as Hamlet Iyer's attempted suicide takes for ever to set up and almost as long to wind down. Miss Keith, courageously searching for roles to stm her tittering fans, brings two voices to the woman who has exchanged dinner parties in Eaton Square for adultery in Ladbroke-Grove (Oh, the grave, dignified and solemn, as though lfcig to difficult chiMren- who might step out of line and, very occasionally, the strangulated sob-cry-gulp. She dare not use her own fine cutting edge on the role (as Ash-croft must have done) because it is that which, above all, makes the fans titter. Good support from David Yelland as pathetic, unspeakable Freddie, sozzled test pdot and Hester's homme Anthony Bate, all kindly granite as her formidable husband-judge, and John Normington as the tolerated, advising of.

Middle Europe, invited in off the stairs! It looks as though the beautiful Playhouse London's only true baroque theatre, albeit of Edwardian have its first success. The Belgrade, Covenby production of The Fifteen adapted from Catherine Copkaon, by Rob Bettinson who. also directs, is fttiinlv. Ttmeowle. ervin ttrfitrii ia by William Eti til 2.50 Shakespeare teej sIHInVV Mllllt till VI AlHlSK a via mi imi ftlBlf period is, loosely, late Victorian, but Hamlet himself (Kenneth Branagh) wears baggy pullover and trousers of today, as though visiting from another plane.

The ghost is an evasive swathe of white light; 'O, what a piece of work is is a poem read by Hamlet from a book. Jacobi'a production also completes the diversity of Renaissance casting across all three plays: Richard Esston follows his Leonato and Jacques with a powerful, hard-drinking and contemptuous Claudius, something of a dandy, tender with Gertrude, but fearful of having incurred the primal curse of fratricide. Dearbma Molloy, a witty novitiate Ursula ('Much Ado) and a bawdy Audrey in Arden, gives Hamlet's mother a glowing sensuality which turns viciously on the false Danish dogs who cry for the succession of Laertes; she screams in terror when she is assaulted by her son. Sophie Thompson (earlier a crisp Margaret and Ceka) makes very clear the lines along which Ophelia's courage, high feeling, pbedience: indignation decline under the shock of suppression and (perhaps) sexual intimacy, into madness. Her par The Ereatest Duzale Yelena.

The least realised malar character in Chekhov, she needs to be played by a woman of gnat beauty who is also a stage actress of cmnmanding. presence and technique. MiseScwchi is the, first, but nob ales, the see mcV the' voice flattens aU before it. One minor horror should be removed at once; the. merry intrusion of a bearded okfeove in i cap; iJlaying.en ethnk eon certina during the changes of support all-star Chekhov the West End.

Oeiekf 5 WbbPi thoughtful production Renaissance Theatre Company (Birmingham Rep Studio, in rep until' Saturday, thereafter touring) confirms Renaissance as the liveliest new mainstream ensemble for. some time. It is less assured than their 'As You Like It' and 'Much Ado About Nothing', but it supports the' argument not true, of course that actors when left to themselves will generally 'allow one another to act. Jenny Tira-mani sett the play on a plain black open space with scarlet curiam and gallery above; the hi. i(e)i iXlllNl vV utilfelllf power Is ticular physical gift expressive fingers throi she sifts sand, pebbles, and shells instead of rosemary, columbine and herb o' grace.

Branagh'8 first Hamlet is pale, passionate and unbalanced, shifting between gentle tenderness and shuddering, hysterical rage. -At present he is running at some of the speeches too fast as if they would mow him down, but others ('To be or not to be', There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. ') are articulated with wonderful narrative clarity of sound and thought. Compared to his Touchstone and Benedick, the effect is uneven, but already full of very good things. It would be unfair to dismiss Rattigah'8 'Deep Blue Sea' (1952) as unrevivable solely on the strength of Alan Strachan's Haymarket production because he takes an idiosyncratic view of the play and it has not worked.

This seems to be that if you pass over its lapidary, 'tight-lipped surfaces with particular, painstaking some acute resonance a hindsight affinity, perhaps, with Pinter will emerge. It does not. In fact the play's tortuous, painful and prickly English evasions about love, hist, fidelity, possessiveness and mutual expectation, might yield a sharper edge if treated, with greater briskness, not Jess. The story behind Hester Col- Lorca's 'Gruel Garden' nil 'W'lrlll iwe a oesenpaon ox vciwi ur den, the Lc ballet revived by QmstopherBruce for LFB, Fes tival Bailers smaller ofBmoot Bruce oriainallv made' it in coK-kontkm Sa Kemp for Ballet Rambert's 1977 season at The Rnudhouse, 4 Ralph Koltai'sbuUrtag set-ting is reduced at Sadler's wUi (where LFB ia appearing for two weeks) but still wonderfully effective. It an upper tier for the bald ScMbr (Alex anoer wand) to at -KMiMMiki iu.

accompanied miry aJSSM5 amplified whisper or ftuitg oo stage by the Cam Ptttetress angry, sexy to say that it is entirely predictable and (reasonably) true. An efficient, fluent touring produc-, tion, designed by Adrian Rees, is enhanced by a performance of great feeling and charm from Owen Teale as the, -young gaffer I III I III wpHl 4 llll mill uMif In. i Vi if 4 CLOSE to Brighton station is a shop that makes and sells small glass You can see. the molten glass glowing through the window, each piece hot and pliable before it congeals into a fragile shape. Jorma Uotinen, who per-fbrmed in the Brighton Festival over Ganv ban's dumtv of five with their concealed.

are. nose ore mvisWty in seeks to edse who craves worfd, njrinwl' wnrang bravado end After the somewhat cerebral impression of Peter Hall's Shakespearean Romances, reviewed last week, you could not wish for a more joyous and uninhibited display of English physical acting than these two marvellous performances. The prevailing native tradition, by which emotion is expressed principally aoove the neck, Astrov Vanya' infatuation and, more interest ingly, by Penelope Keith in The Deep Blue Sea (Haymarket) play about sex in which the word sex is never mentioned, given a performance whose sen ACCORDING to the O.E.D. Supplement, 'workfare', a term of American origin in use since the 1990a, means 'a polky of requWng; recipknls of welfare money to do some wotk in exchange for this Britain's young employed take it for granted that vrorkfare' has arrived already; Officially there ia no such policy. A Government Minister, John Lee, said so to an audience of disbelieving Sheffield teentikers on Radio 1.

The show, a ragged debate broadcast live, at the end of another week Or nee advice about Jobs, usual glimpse of the between the ruled and exalts title as printed, From Welfare to Workmre, seemed to agree that it was happening, By transmission time, some cautious soul had told die announcer to make it sound like a question. Much of the a polite word for it, consisted of statements from the audience about experiences (good and bad) of youth training schemes. These schemes will soon be obligatory, in the sense that the jobless who refuse them won't get their dole money. Heckling was crude and fierce, belling over when, the economist Patrick Minfbrd, alleged by Labour's Barry Sbeerman to have 'a hot line to Mrs said the Welfare State was founded on the' 'work-test principle, and such measures were quite properly VICTORIA CHAPLIN vanya tne ncneboju and nimseir out or ua Irani nucnUaUuea itui iTllllhlllBWMfnnT 1 nUKr. ObMOUIa Mtb.1k tcmis-siss, MUMUBtiiOtlt Strong Eave: the abyss their rul- Chichester Festival Theatre sual expressiveness is.

virtually nil. More of that in a moment. Pryce is tall, bearded and could pass for an Orthodox priest. combines: delicacy with bulk. It is impossible to imagine him giving a performance where the whole of his body is not used: the bull neck is here averted in Vanya's mockr gbnussions to reprcMgwt ly entile tempers tanm.eexvevei: drag jthemselyes tnooience ecron tne a long summer bsck by the dlsdph of fkmUy lift end the rage, when ft explodes, ia both terrifying and absurd.

performance Gambon Staunton olava Vanva'a Sonia as a fervent, scrubbed, shining and humorous girl whose impromptu midnight feast with the adored doctor is the finest scene of the night. Blakemore's production allows the actors space to move, but lacks the 1 kind of detailing we have come to expect in our Chekhov Vanya's radical old mother, for example, (Rachel Kempspn) is simply stuck in a corner with her pamphlets and left to get on with it and Tanya McCallin's sets are awkwardly pitched between naturalism and allusion. meant to- put preaiute oh the unemployed. 'That's: why people cwnmit someone yelled. He ended Ms outburst with con- temptuous reference to 'ym' ting there -in your little striped: This 'brought wild applause.

Minfbrd snapped back about taxpayers' money, adding, TYOu-cnnase my suit, wn your What has tuit aot to do with Material hem for. Sarah Dun-ant's 'Consuming PassiottS, show; and for tears. Cltixetuv Radio 4'a lagging soap the young, iint going to amaal much to either the pecuharly-lacketed or the suited. Much agonising is said to be going on aMha BBC. Are the seripta wrong, or is it the characters? More likely it's the whole concept, a serial based in -a boarding house, its occupants perceived as rootiessi' birds of The Arehere knowa what people a solid reliable bit of England with a history that conforms to popular.mytk.Bven that fearful hurdy-fjirdyish rendering of its theme-tune seems to hark back to earlier times, whereas the 'Cidaena'' musk could belong to any sitcom of the Eighties.

Alex, -the unmarried Mttm who runs the bearding house, went back to her posh parents' place in East Anglia last week, nddttB little Win and her Iivar! Sol.lciend Julia (does always ve to be Lfverpoolr) 1 hate the country, grumbled Alex. In facti the episode instantly canie to life when she -got there and started quamlling her father, a man with a wardobe full of suits. Perhaps the producers should think' seriously of relocating. THIS WEEK. EMI have given us five twc-CO aeta The asanas Past Maatere'.

which bring toaathar A A aMsa of slnglaa, speelal BP tracfa and Baattea oddWes. The ttratflvo'Obaafvareedemto namethe B4ldo Leva You' will win both toe: And A raoofda have provided JO seta et a new fMMraek. llmltadMKIen CD aarlaa teaturlng 10 artlata Including Joan Armatrading, The Police, the Carpantara, Iggy Pop, Herb Alpert and Qulncy Jonaa. The first 10 readers to anawer: Who owns recorda? will win a complete act pettfMufi ts Ns5m or AIM, Marketing Department. The Observer.

Chelsea Bridge House, Queonstown Road, London SW8 4NN. TM MM on nairwia your peculiar -jaw tiiey.iiowtea, wnara tnat sot to ao wttn ttr ana ne aattiv rredries culinri and feminine He is a cho rnmanhar aa Mll-M danecr and runs his ow dUbaied al the HclfhM City Theatre. Shtthe waZsel tof Sbert's 'Deathand the Maiden, it is a hioh-tension piece for a man at the end of his tether, to Whom death comes as bride. Uotinen has the ability to alter his audience's perception of time, speeding it in hslra-dnatory scenes and then arresting it through hia stillness. Like the glass-maker, he seems to pull energy through his entire body, extending his limbs into space.

Then he shatters the flow of movement with harsh expressionist gestures: he knocks1 one hand away from his face only for it to fly back to gag his mouth while the other grabs his groin in a spasm of terror. The claustrophobic set is littered with objects, described as: fetishes in Uotinen's programme note: some are women's including an apron-dress that he drapes over his head like a caul. It also serves as turban, comfort blanket, noose and sex-ob- Jorma Uotinen and and rW the weyhe COtUainS a wJUft(and death) to a lttOe room, cnrepgrapny ia less gssrfiSfesJSi1, dancers ida bleak lsndsciM of gulden and oU-difUJnsTne (record) mustemoveabetween-electronic soisakssiid sight and-Astor Piasaolla's sultry tangos. snort imrete tf amvitrftTC uTihWSthejftolmen itemtaKtenT SE The women lack their irmnehU nets and their control Transposed to female bodies, Uotinen's choreography loses its sexuaUy-chsrged ambiguity and becomes conventional. By the end of the 90 minute piece, he has turned them all into treacherous Cermens who meet a ritual tetb, wonian ia red ffletto heele -who seems to represent the moon Uotinen's poetic, programme note (no doubt it sounds better in Finnish), with its references to moonlight, desire, melancholy AT7.45PM iiii i ifft'i tiling; ii Artistic Director We are seeking an Artistic Pirector for the Chichester Festival Theatre and the new Studio Theatre to succeed the present Director John Gale, who leaves in October 1989.

This is a challenging opportunity for a gifted theatre professional with experience imagination and flair. Applications accompanied, by a detailed c.v. should be sent, by June 30th 1988 to: The Chairman, Chichester Festival Theatre Productions Company The Senate House, Canonbury Lane, London Nl 2AS. They will be acknowledged and treated in confidence. who.

fiuis in love with the posh young who leaves her parents and moves in next door. jpey reabsed over-: bihg them of their" symbolic power. Carmen Miranda's masts on menxmuna, surging id -percussive- climaxes that make the dancm' efforts look puny, even when, the seethes PrindMlbtill is Martin James, powerful foil; to Onzia's ele-gsncev -Tii0 edng- men -are given a what fQucsn. doas qratdatic nwdern danjKrsv7an4 TrmidadiiSev mm. a bby is cast as mothet, virgm'an gypsy.

But to em'oy thSeTprft have.f to'' enthms wdte-faced ctovntt danceta ae-pjappets and a Butter Keaton charade (to I'awhfansk scenario) with bicyCUi Uljend angels. csn being nsct-nated fafedOMW and by messen- oxjuBmii gers of Jfleatnt figures that hold endurma appeal far Bruce SPaSttuTS aurely room enoujth for all kinds of experience die theatre. GRAND METROPOLITAN Mil rn ill! ill incmKM moon ngnr ana uowersare Eranmcanv; robi HI SUMMER STARTS HERE PENAIRTHEATR THE VnNTER'S it "MAGNIFIQUE! BREATHTAKING A NON-STOP DELIGHT" RlOUCtOPUi 1h Crhbh dsbstefltta CellicHon All thabest csqplawiN bffisrt Bpjrhf eeMtiiigi arthlt era Is Britols fcf the firjt tjfsi ItotstrlMiiHplraM Make sura yau'te there reoM isjuNS MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM IOtLY AUPVPgODDCTJONTHAT FKOMlAtMnjST THE MDCBasaM) HART MUSICAL wtiimimoi aSS ill jMBSBBBBBBBBBBBjaBBEU JEAN BAPTISTE THIERREE fWV. fittta If.