The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 26

Teds and Tit-Bits Odd ideas and German accents; they are Pan-European, thus risking a kind of Esperanto fluency: vaguely comprehensible to most people, but not bothered with much. THE -reasons why Nigel Henderson picked on a backstreet tobacconist's shopfront c.1949 aren't altogether clear impulse presumably, fortified by-a Bunuiugicai rensn tor Bethnal Green and a taste STANISLAVSKY'S advice should be tattooed on the chest of every opera producer Nor a sinele superfluous move outside the rhythm of the music' I've no idea whether the great man practised wnat ne preached. But Jean-Claude Auvray, the producer of English National Opera's new La Boheme, has not done so, and his habit of periodically thrusting himself be tween the audience and the opera comes close to ruining for bizarre clutter. Anyway, turned out to be just another 'Disparates' (acknowledges, photograph of it now bastard sort of photography ments to Goya). Here the looks like an advertisement (home-made Xerox effects) Wise Men of Gotham, or their forUses of Literacy dodu- Pr.oves 10 a powerful contemporary business-suited lar culture at the close of l16 edlu.m- Ordinary equivalent, rummage around rtp nTw or, photo-collage is cut-and-cover: like big babies poking into t.

i Henderson's images drift like other people's affairs, watch-it as detailed as a micro- flotsam, moon around like mg market trends, attempting ncne, crammed from pave- spectres, swelling and crump- to diagnose, resorting to ment to signboard with ing as they are pickled, violence, sinking with all placards offering American fossilised, transfigured. hands. The charcoal lines are comics No Points Choc The artist's own face looms robust. They look as though Crunch, Take Home Double up sallow-tinted, warped in they might be washproof; bize Genuine Delicious Nea- triplicate like an overdose of that is, the message counts politan Ice Cream Family Aleisteir Crowleys. A pin-up more than the style it's Brick and, the window, from Tit-Bits, Lovely Linda couched in.

countless further temptations, by name and very much the The paintings are complex among them Donald Duck worse for wear, is put in that the brushwork often teething rings and (Adults through several modifications has a camouflage effect, Only) Fhrt and Photo- and ends up wiped sideways, blending the subjects, by WILLIAM FEAVER of preoccupations fades into thp npxr. what rmt ri navp Peter de Francia A camouflage effect. the cheesecake smile stretched and panic-stricken. what is, in many ways, a ducer's hands and sings, by beautiful and memorable her standards, rather evening. stodgily.

If the second act ENO's idea of asking a catches fire even so, the French producer to stage a credit belongs to Charles work so intimately bound up Mackerras and the orchestra with Parisian locations hasn't and chorus. Indeed the en-misfired, it's true. Auvray is semble work throughout is a meticulous, observant and first rate, and more than skilful stage manager. He anything shows how far this and his designer, Hubert company has come since they Monloup, have between them last offered a new invented a series of attrac- The first of Radio 3's Two tive, authentic-looking sets, Sides of Henze concerts, full of atmosphere and good broadcast last Monday, in-sense; and if the Momus set- eluded the British premiere ting does not justify Auvray if that's a legitimate des-in his narcissistic lifting of cription of a performance on the curtain several seconds tape of the String Quartet before the music starts No. 3.

In fact Henze wrote (shameless audience manipu- no less than three string lation), he does at least pay quartets last year (Nos. 3-5: this debt with interest by their two predecessors are holding the curtain up at the very early works). The Third very end, so that for once had its premiere at the Ber-every note of Puccini's last Jin Festival (Monday's tape page is heard one of the being of that performance by loveliest of operatic endings. tne Concord Quartet); and it is witnin the acts that the otner two were played problems accumulate Here later in the Schwiit. Auvray is afflicted with Ideas.

zin neither of these has He has the Idea for instance, been heard here that when, in the last act, l. Rodolfo and Mimi reminisce The Jhird Quartet has no about their first act meeting, connection whatever with the noini- rill hp hplnpH hv a Henze's political activities, Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in Trevor Nunn's production of Hitting the bullseyes Nigel Henderson's long standing speciality has been photoplay of a different order. Stressed photography he calls if, meaning images salvaged- or brought about by contrived accident, manipulation, -bleaching and tinting. The shopfront, though, comes from his East End phase, 1949-52, when he took to recording whatever caught his eye, there. His current exhibition at the d'Offay Gallery includes about 20 of these shots: incipient Teds loitering on a corner, someone of gentler birth, duffle-coated on Boat RCCe Day '52, Bisto-type kids gaping, lots of casual 1 His dual approach- candid a Mass Observation manner and Surreal photo-gram-collage led to two important cross-cultural 'Parallel of Life and At.W 195:5, and this is To 1956, in collabora- tion with Eduardo Paolozzi inti'Alison and Peter Smith As' a member of the Independent Group at the ICA In, early htties, dissemin ating mildly subversive imag ery liKe conretti, nenaerson can claim to be a sire of Pop if he wants to.

His interests, nowever uixe raoiozzisi, nave always Deen too inmvia- i i i ruKT Sl0t fi -ng- Others built up reputations; ifSfn. YeaUVZ 0t0; graphy. Whatever happened to.Nigei Henderson? those to whom he's just a distant Ulogue name have asked, The present show is the Fikinss nr an answpr anrt a makings of an answer and a come-back. For as one streak There are some lurid mai. aic some-mosaic touches and tritp thing between petit-point THIS has been a spectacu- It best to star.t by looking at the drawings, in particular ar tne sprip rip hrm-ina ailo wneiner quarrvmen.

emi grant workers or bulky, quickset nudes. There is a prevailing impression of ideas pursued into the public domain, of protest (as in 'The Bombing of Saskiet') in would-be Everyman terms, with passion in danger of being dulled or numbed through overkill. The speckly paintings of James Lloyd, the Yorkshire na'ive artist who died in 1974, are also at the Camden Arts Centre, in stilted contrast to the profuse de Francias. Ken Russell once cast Lloyd as the Douanier Rousseau in a biog-romp. The comparison is tenable but unfair.

Lloyd's accomplishment was small-scale and modest. He processed photos of cham- plon piis sheep, beauty th.e family and so on and tatt0 Wlth the colours new-mown hay. Every so "ic wa a hard-won chtnment teeaVouS: Mostly, though, there is noth- ing but a sense of tireless transcription. At the Rowan. Richard Kidd is showing naintines swoop to tne right in sequences oi nues.

Danos and graphite slurries, the shapes and accents marshal ed as wougn a course is oemg set and. a movement got under His dexterity is admir- able, and his control of the repeat elements, but after a few variations his dash and assuranrp pet tn lnnk and assurance, get to look rather custom-built, RalanrhitiP has thP hpln of PrntnfW anl RmTanlt hm -tTOKOnev ana KOUault, OUl he keeps the tale tingling bv the brevity and weird in- vention of each section. Apart from a final lapse into sentimentality, he holds the style in a firm grip; the short tense routines are never aimed at the audience as Petits are. When decisively inter- preted, the ballet still works, and on Tuesday it was. Des- mond Kelly is a moving and believable play-boy hero; Vyvyan Lorrayne has now got the measure of the Siren, coidiv come-nitnerisn.

ana tne whole compaM ballet with attractive vigour. XIUS WdS 1I1ULI1 uie UCSL ltem in an all-Balanchine nroeramme. wnicn also m- programme, which also in- cluded ,5 black-and-white ciuded mo black-and-white abstract works one too manv hv mv f-niint Mow f-Tiar manv bv mv count. Now that rvimwtn Ramrrn anri Four Temperaments are settling dnwn into neriod classics wpVvrtLo 10I demand nrime nertormances 0f them, but these were no more than workman-like. 'Four Temperaments' came 0fi better, with lively rnnihnHnni from Miim Gielgud, Carl Myers and Bernd Berg.

In 'Concerto Barocco it was Berg again who really danced, while the rest of the company seemed to lack the muscular drive needed if the choreography is not to turn into an academic exercise. But then the same applies to the music; a decent performance is not good enough for Bach's sublime double violin concerto. i mm i STEPHEN WALSH on a new Boheme and a Henze quartet. much promise, and with the firm Marcello, Christian du Plessis. The only disappointment among the singers is the Musetta.

Lorna Havwond. who suffers most at the nro- Dut 15 introspective, ele- slac worK Jn a single move ment, written in memory of his mother. Superficially it 1 1 1 narKS oacK to tne tremulous sri wuik in me late iiiueb aim early sixties. But in both texture and construction the music is now far more tightly conceived and concentrated in expression. The ear is certainly not oppressed by a purely intellectual argument: but it is sustained by U1U1 a more disciplined handling of those ornate cantiienas ch riot J.n wrl Sympho: gratifyi, works like the Fourth ny.

interesting, as well as gratifying, to discover that Henze nt prepared not only can, but is to write still in this restrained and beautiful man. ner. Oddly, the style now i-cll ies iiiui L.uiivii.Liuii man did before. In one sense, I suppose, propagandist art fce vVe come to the river' or The Katt ot the Medusa will always place such a reflective artist in a slightly artificial pose, however splendid the results (a con troversial matter, of course). nut Derhaos bv forcine him t0 iaok beyond his own sensi- biiities, such works will at the same time have given him a view of himself from the outside.

The Third Quartet suggests that can only be a good thing, Several readers have pointed out that I praised the wrong orchestra in last week's review of Musgrave's Mary Queen of The orcnestra was tne Scottish Chamber Orchestra not the Scottish National. I should like to apologise, especially to the SCO, for this mistake. bands Diahnne Abbott. Although it is much too vampish, vocally, this is a snatch of song that plays about so much more subtly with the listener's psychology than Miss Min nelli drag queen defvine -a belters that one wonders how it ivuss stood tor it. Perhaps was in ue iNiro contract.

about this interesting failure, but the space is claimed by an already renowned mess called Exorcist II The Heretic (London General Release, X). The question nobody wanted to see answered after 'Exorcist I' concerned the state of Max von Sydqw's soul at the time of his death; yet that's what John Boor-man's sequel sets out to determine, with Father Richard Burton SJ in the investigator's role. From the start the film is either unbearably silly or incomprehensible, and finally both at once. Linda Blair is roped in again to lay on the hot-line to Hell. By means of a token black box with wires trailing out of it, she succeeds in acquainting the sweaty and permanently panic stricken Burton with the evil sediment at the bottom of her brain Lid ii.

Jii nc aLaiUiJci CO Africa, scaling cliffs and chas- pan, oil he scampers to juxtapositions of classical figures and dereliction. But through these darkroom vicissitudes, scenes are shaped, compositions elab orated in ways unimaginable by any other means. Photo- graphy and painting are merged and (if only slightly) extended. Peter de Francia's mint. mgS and drawings (at the Camden Arts Centre) repre- sent 20 years' work.

They are a formidable spectacle. Situa- "sturn into allegory, in the Beckmann idiom, time after time Hefty fellows too big for the boats they drift in, belabour each other, wal- low, wonder, signal for atten- t-inn fnnl thpTncolirPc TVio tion. fool themselves, The paintings have both French bv ALEXANDER BLAND D' Al-cftNWCH BLH score never rises above the level of B-picture film music, and even the inventive Petit himself, has come up with oniy one or- two interesting numbers. He resorts too often to rows of dancers doing the same movement exactly the repetitive device which some iiiuueiu musis use means of neutralising the emotions, ine Dest paten is There is little hope in the; fvommi Kut in thp Viittinu nf so many bull's-eyes there is enormous joy. Meanwhile, back at the Other Place, Sheila Allen sur- passes herself in Pam Gems's Queen Christina, seeking per- sonal freedom as Swedish monarcn Act xi, men.

alter abdication, all over Europe (Art rn v. Allpn ha! hparrv roguish teasing approach to her oues? (' Where are the wLQ Hp mands" lting the skirts of ZrWan CLTimm Ss) fit yo couTd swear was hp all is that it is real. Christina yearns in the end for the iu a f-Ani -irt which she was robbed by a masculine upbringing. no not overlook, however, that this was actually forced on her by a man a father who desired a male heir as fer- vently as Henry VU1 and was determined to make her into .1 1 1 tn 1 g- The play is an argument for iove, and against dogma, Appropriately breezy in pre- sentation, it includes one vio- lent scene worthy of the Jacobeans certainly the best historical play in years, never allowing events to obscure the character, though at some -nsf rn narrative c-laritv cost 0 narrative clarity. Among supports, Ian.

Mc- Neice stands out as a cardinal, hed sensibly short of extreme unction. There is the occasional roufh edg! performance none at all to Julie Harris in The Belle of Amherst (Phoenix), a one- Unhappy Hunchback sudden flick back to the first 22 SSiW'rwM same in revei i-hp spt reverse, 1 sup pose we can be thankful that he didn think of vankine ound at the the whole stage round same time). Another Idea is to turn Musetta's waltz-song into a wrrchorurofQkneelinyg Sir Walter Raleighs throwing down their cloaks. This might seem an apt approach. But it fails, and for the good reason mat it so ooviousiy 1 1 1 XT Z-i oi the 37 I i 5- i the song, per- by hel.

up' -0tSer suc5 aTld shnwinz Auvrav at his worst. showing Auvray at his worst, r' KTVevT; us a noii-nie up iabt wen enougn. ine toucnes of pure realism, the Puccini genre which later became submerged in hysterics, nearly all come off well, especially in the first act (though it isn't lit in accordance with the libretto) and the third, where pathos and dramatic irony enjoy their most precarious, and irresist- ible balance. All this is very much helped, it has to be said, by the prettiness of the Mimi (Valerie Masterson), and the obvious youth of the four artists. Sadly, these are transient virtues.

Miss Mast- erson looks exquisite, and though some may find her voice too ugnt ana siivery tor the music it's sensitively used and holds its own in duet with David Rendall, a genuine Italianate tenor of the big woman show about Emily xr kii sense of the poems (which are slid into the whole with excessive unobtrusiveness), though much of the author's wonder at having written tnem Thi S.j:?.bu"onlloling uie auaience ior two and a half hours, must be the most loquacious recluse on record. This is a brimful perform- ance, graced with earnest wit, but since the script is no much (its neculiariv Jbwri. can schoolmarmishness might be more apDrooriate for Louis SkS best to reeard if as a maenifW audition. It allows Miss Harris to display the qualities of a ui srrpat arti-pcc fini.m r. bewitching lightness of foot in running on for hpr all but not to harness them.

In Ronald "rlarwood's dramatisation, Evelyn Waugh's The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (Royal Exchange, Manchester) nas i uramatic snape Dut no dramatic point. The torments, self-induced, of a Catholic writer hearing voices on a sea cruise are well set out and well directed by Michael Elliott, though I am disappointed that he should countenance so much sloppy acting. But thav mean little for Gilbert himself is estab- lished as nothing worse than a routine snob. In the circumstances, Michael Hordern's tetchy benevolence is actually a ninarance. Alec uuinness was originally cast for the part, and he in his aloof wav.

might have rooted it in a real spiritual ache. rmiieri i7 New TOrK, flew TOrK and Exorcist tnjn. i ui Llf ilUil streamers and fiats at the liiw with exhaustSS regularity are akin fa rl a "aLuly peep Ol noise. scorses is rWW COrsese IS clearly OUt to enjoy, briefly, the conventions of the ballroom musical. But into this tinselly den sidles the rodent De Niro, with his familiar chat-up technique, combining straight ahead, brainless crudity, Italian insistence, and an ironic awareness of the lousy impression he must be making.

It comes out as an astonishing cross between Valentino and Popeye the Sailor Man; but we also recognise it as very modern, very oblique and full of daring improvisation ana siy grins tnat weren there at rehearsal, Contrast La Minnelli, sit- ting at her table, pickled in showbiz. Some of ifs not her fault: the hairstyle was a necessary period detail, like the pillar-box lipstick, and th mc innt ut cause De Niro's got to be v.mvw lw giveJ? glamorous i (HBtasaa i loi ui mien even tamer looKea rrienaiy. 1 uo this mood that takes nosses-there is a strone solo for the i. 1 his heir he raises and then a. 1 J' THE second offering of Rola'ndPetit's Ballets de Marseille at the Palladium, Notre Dame de raris, was more in- teresting in conception than in -performance.

The subject was Victor Hugo's 'Hunch- the epitome of nine- teenth century sentimental melodrama, a beauty-and-the- beast talo with a horror-pic Gothic: setting and sug- gestio.ris of rape and mob fury.tD the sound of cathedral bells. In the old days, a choreo- srapher might have tackled irtead-on. wJi realistic sets, hundreds of extras and a mus-luilad heroine scampering up the chancel with her deformed saviour, pursued by a sex-mad ecclesiastic. It a oca-uiou 11 wouldhayebeeu absurd and irresisnme. ine xsoisnoi The Bolshoi might do it now.

w. -rPem is far too sophisticated FoY that sort of nniitRtti and hie hallpt in thp form-Of a strip cartoon. The broken down into minimal and the costumes reaucen to starlf simn ir tv. with few concessions to per- fba5" character. Esmerelda is in a modified leotard; the handsome young Archdeacon wears a Hamlet doublet and hose; the Hunchback has no hump, but holds one shoulder nigiiertnan tne otner.

Thg highly stylised approach might have worked, but doesn't not, I think, fronfany weakness in the tructure, but from the pov- erty of the material. Rene Allio's set is negligible (a ingle set of bells) and Yves Saint-Laurent's costumes un- appetising. Maurice Jarre's Funeral for Minnelli. chief representa- sense, the more so because It tives of their hugely different features a long and limelight-traditions, are even more in- hogging imitation of Billie compatible, professionally, Holidav bv De Niro's wife 1SFI ROBERT CUSHMAN on The best Shakespeare production I have ever cvu kcl owav with it. As it is.

her break- down is triggered more by his rejection than her conscience, Exhausted bv the events of the banquet, she slumps to the ground. On 5 We are vet but foung in deed Macbedt nulls her violentlv uo and half supports, half drags her off. The contact is a cruel j- -c i-- i Darodv of the emhrarps with which she softened him up to the initial murder. Ihere is never any doubt she will suc- ceea; sne Knows her man. For Ian McKellen's Mac- beth is worm-eaten from the start.

for all his victor's smiles in the opening scenes, -U i i neM 1 -h than lt year; our first pimpse mto nim comes when he tells Banquo, 'Your child- a11 kms- Envv alreadv. there and loosed, it is a consumer. The "otS. sunded again Mr Cu el en mosti. high tones, once he is king; ne nas aone It ail "to maKe Vi-i Banguo-kbigs It sickens aanquu Kings.

it sicKens V' aches wkwards taf i.1 :1 C1 Vd behind th rancid; and it is blOll Ol U1C last act. livery- disgusts him and his on reason fnr fightjng t0 tHp rlpath is tna th vhoTioh 0f subjection to Malcolm is tllA nf all Whovp fuliCG lonrh cur. ceeds with a carefully built" tvvi js ore unpredictable, Hooding the play with energy fid (which indeed it is). With mental alacrity goes physical bravura: the autonomous bloodstained hand, the quak- inn whpn Rimam WnnH approaches; we are present at the revelation of a conscious- ness ss and at the unfolding of story that pales any horror m. Trpvnr ltfnnn'c nrnrlnrr on a film Trevor Nunn's production hlpak anri simulfl: thp is bleak and simple; the goodies entering Dunsinane find it full of upturned orange boxes and discarded magic fetishes, and they end the play, not unnaturally, in weariness and' disillusion.

I I lar week for acting. It was dominated by the RSC Macbeth, which reinrorces the Warehouse the im- pression it made last year at the tner Place. It is the best Shakespeare produc- tion I have ever seen, combining minute textual smitinv with throat-Seiz- jng emotional power. At Stratford I dispatched the supp0rting cast with a collective sunirlative. This time round i should like Rratefullv to name names, witches, a busi- nesslike non-cacklinE trio, relying less on Satanic vision than maiicious determina.

Marie Kean. the Der- emptory ruler of the coven, receives grizzled support from Judith Harte; they are eartnoound, witn young ausan Drury the initiate witch mat wants nara use ineir to uie suweriuiuidi. They exemPllfy many thf merits all possible con- fiffl 11 L' 1" 'tTJ-p Vh7n 1PSv mab VPir aH firS brandish ew 2, Tgl JiZ UU1- "1C uica uiiciu- selves arp so uneasv that wp. are constantly jolted into poetry Griffith Jones's white- robed Duncan is, un- strainedlv. a saint; but it is a moment of self-indulgence teas-mg out tne nl V.

hes Macbeth hopes "-r-" aecioes ms iate. jonn Woodvine's vvuouvines sanquu aianus four-square, hut his mind ranges; tne rnougnt or nis children kin spdiirps surely Macbeth. Bob recks Mac- when he Iplaks of the i iL1! duff is the steadiest of all: mat striKe neaven an ine his own voice is a hammer. The one non-vacillating character in the play, he balances not only Macbeth, but also Roger Rees's hope- ful, doubtful Malcolm, and lan McJJiarmm civil servant Ross. Greg Hicks's Seyton is a streamlined thug whom Macbeth adopts as confidant, when his murderous instincts begin to outstrip his wife's.

Judi Denoh's Lady Macbeth in fact would kill Duncan and leave it at that. If her hus- band would be equally con- AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD THE background of New tr 1, ir i. Leicester Square, A) is the bie.banr business ol x1K. vwucuu, the Iate 1940s- Business was bad, you may remember. By the end of the forties, there was hardly a iazz-based bie band left.

It would be as well to bear this in mind when people start trying to convince you that this film of Martin Scorsese's is a celebration of or even a homacTP tn rho Wnllv-iAmnii homage to, the Hollywood hevdav nf lavish miisiral anrf heyday of lavish musical and sappy, conventional bio-nic. It's much more like a funeral for those forms, and in parts it feels like one. The story line writes itself. rast-iaiKing tenor saxopnon- 1st Jimmy Doyle (Robert De Niro), spending VJ-Night out mi uie town latcnes on to a cow-eyed WAC called Fran- cine Evans (Liza Minnelli) and won't let go. It takes ilm.

a reel t0 discover she a singer, and out they go on the road together, in a band which Jimmy naturally ciiu up wMug over. But he's a bad leader, won't think commercial, and Francine vocal talents are attracting disproportionate attention; so they quarrel, using the baby as an excuse, and part. Yet success comes to them seoaratelv. he as a saxist club-owner, rather like a and tT" than the characters they play. They don't mix well enough to combust.

There is, oddly enough, a very fine example in the film of method-type acting 'within showbiz conventions, and that .111. if provided by me famous sazz tenor-player Georgie Auld. As the ageing, toad-eyed band- leader Frankie Harte, Auld is quite superb. His lines of dialogue with Minnelli on the Liza Minnelli Pickled in showbiz. band-bus capture that atmos- y- -j Hunchback and a .) wiulu, aiuiuugn niter- rupted by some inappropriate ruyLBuojraoiueuwppioiiiiBL- manoeuvres, has many good moments.

The best performance came from Jean-Marc Torres as the athletic Archdeacon, Rudv Brvans is too sPr evokina eyra to make a pity- cnppie, uut carnea on nis awkward role with dignity; the ultra-elegant Dominique Khalfoum suggested she was wearing white gloves even in the belfry. By a curious chance one of the most successful examples or tnis same cartoon-smp idiom could be seen the next night at Sadler's Wells, where the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet was presenting Balanchine's Prodigal Son. This is composed in a very similar way, with, short sequences done in a stylised manner. But what a difference Admittedly BOOK To QUEEN'S Please supply for which ALL POSTAL fni, 7i? J.1"""51 -umuijrj gu pnere or aeaa-or-mgnt cuniev jng locusts, wnne JSoorman's Zt rnLJii ful1; a crowded room. si0nal in a few effortless camera charges furiously C0Tue of But- underneath it all, there sec0nds quite a feat when about the ether in dreamlike in I uPl ai'? more ayes of the samel you consider that Scorsese rushes and swoops.

But who mat SS0' -bu5 "Hi18 a -deP conventional fiaa nearly tfaown it all avray is dreaming? It becomes It nlvJ? reallv rhl tTZl1 by having the bandsmen sing less and less easy to say, and lshaTTK oeutr1s0doo.fOr n6Xt tW (ScoS lrspLZ, rpi ta.niw intonri be a better director when he as Linda's, shrink, wander SSiteh anihJLUnf0rtUnattlyfBueS admits that not all the people through the picture playing tolled exp oson from nll on the fringes of his films everything with a spaced-out ffih.2ranftSS DenE- who'fge inf' nec'. to be Itjlians.) Anyway mm escaping energy. In the event, behind by history and Tm!" Aulfs sleek- ulcerated have no rationale at all. though, the bang is not spec- nelli who's the representative performance is a treasurable In the end ifs everyone tacular, and even the most of the New Thing the age of miniature, and' one which 1 back to Linda's house to violently star-struck customer superstar solo vocalists; and should perhaps have expec- watch the structure collapse will find himself wondering it's hard to keep remember- ted S1.nce the' record-books an irrelevant procedure, why. The first scene, at the ing this when from the show tnat Auld sPent nearly since the film itself has long VJ party, will tell him a lot.

point of view of 'acting style, a year in late forties in ago disintegrated. At no It's not by any means an un- De Niro is the latest craze, the cast of a Broadway play, stage, incidentally, does a successful scene in itself, but bursting with apparent novel- AH the. sax solos in the film diabolic presence makes it-it fatefully determines more ties. That first scene sets a are bis. self effectively felt (as or less everything to come.

pattern which will be main-. Other incidentals stick out opposed to seen or heard). The venue is a very card- tained De Niro flexing his more than they ought a The original Exorcist had board night-club, overlit, whippety mannerisms all sign not only that the central few virtues, but that was overdressed, and looking re- over the set and Minnelli pairing is wrong, but that the one of them. I'm told Ameri- markably like a film studio, desperately trying to find film's shape has been spoiled can audiences laughed at the A very good imitation, from new ways of coping with him by late cutting (which it has), original version of this film certain angles, of Tommy without abandoning her Lionel Stander's performance before additions and corec- Dorsey is playing on the character and period. as an agent has the butchered vions were made.

What we're band-stand, and the floor is It all comes down to the feel about it. A scene in a left with is a ludicrous film full of revellers who, in spite point that De Niro and night-club doesn't make with the laulis taken out. THEATRE, Shafteibury Avenue W1 'The Old Country' StallsD.CircleU.CircIa the 8.003.005.008.30 performance on I enclose cashchequepostal order APPLICATIONS SHOULD INCLUDE A STAMPED ADDRESSED ENVELOPE QUEEN'S THEATRE Shaftesbury Avenue W1. Box 1166 EVENINGS at 8.0. WEDNESDAY MATINEES at 3.0 pm SATURDAYS at 5.0 8.30 STALLS 4.40 3.50 DRESS CIRCLE 4.40 3.50 2.80 UPPER CIRCLE 2.20 1.60 also available from usual agents Special rates for parties, apply Box Office YOUR SEATS BY PHONE WITH THE.