The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 43

The Guardian Monday June 23 1997 1 1 This Is A Chair Top-secret, shrouded in mystery, LIFT production for which Stephen Daldry brings to life an all-new Caryl Churchill short. Wed to Sat at the Royal Court Downstairs (01 71 -565 5000). OiMtontoury Feethral Another mud-bathing, fence-scaling, tent-pitching pop 'n' booze cavalcade for fans of the mighty Prodigy, Beck, Radiohead and plenty more. Friday to Sunday (Details: 0839-668899). UnftMl KinQdomf First of a documentary season on the state we're in, focusing on a quaint crank who dedicates his life to celebrating and stalking the family Windsor.

Tuesday 9pm, BBC2. David Hare new play is a theatrical tribute to the theatre. And that's where it goes wrong, says Michael Billington Sick of self-love BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBI iSm BBBBBBBe embodies the glib hucksterism Hare detests and with whom Eoin McCarthy wrestles valiantly. Ronald Pickup as Esme's permanently sozzled neighbour and Joyce Redman as her indestructible mother-in-law also offer flawless cameos. It's a high-grade production.

But, if one has lingering doubts, it is because Hare seems more anxious to prove a point about the moral value of theatre than to use the stage as a dialectical foaum: in short, what we get is not just Amy's but also David's View. receding proscenium arches as if the Berkshire home were itself a stage. Hare has also written a gift of a part for Judi Dench as Esme. Dench is excellent at giving unsentimental portraits of actresses here, even though the play is emotionally on her side, she makes Esme tough, caustic and durable, not least in the final bare-walled dressing-room scene when she confirms Hare's old observation that "acting is a judgment of Samantha Bond matches her perfectly as Amy, endowing the character with a self-destructive attachment to the hustling Dominic: a figure who Like all good dramatists, David Hare is a bundle of contradictions: he conducts in public his own private debate between radicalism and style, realism and romance. But in Amy's View at the Lyttelton Hare has written an unashamed paean to the theatre in which his romantic side wins hands down over his sceptical one it's wittily enjoyable, but without the schismatic division that made Skylight unforgettable.

Theatre certainly lies at the heart of Amy's View. It starts in Berkshire in 1979 with famed West End actress Esme Allen confronting her daughter Amy and the tatter's ambitious film-buiFboy-friend, Domink: an ironically predictable scene full of echoes of Hay Fever and a legion of Thames Valley comedies. Over the next 16 years we see how Esme's theatrical star wanes while media-celebrity Dominic's symbolically rises. Caught between them is Amy, whose view that love conquers everything is cruelly exposed. Hare sets the stage for a series of confrontations.

Theatre versus the rival media. Mother versus daughter. Esme's feckless charm versus Dominic's Thatcherite greed. But, while the mother-daughter scenes have a passionate intensity, the larger cultural debate never realry takes off, largely because Hare's sympathies are all too evident He may give Esme token flaws including a financial naivety that allows her to become a Lloyd's Name but he clearly adores her resilience and courage as much as he loathes Dominic's ambition and aura of trendy TV opinion -forming. There is plenty in Amy's View to enjoy.

There is a telling, Osbome-like vision of England as a crumbling form of theatre: a fantasy themparkfullof fake fetes and boardroom attempts at historical swagger. Hare is also very good on the minutiae of personal relationships: the frozen silence when Esme and Dominic are first left alone; Amy's later, obstinate refusal to accept her mother's embrace. But, while the play has many moments of emotional truth, it is dubious for drama to tell us how wonderful the theatre is: paradoxically its most lasting tributes, as shown by Les Enfants Du Paradis, often come from rival media. But, even if Hare is writing from a position of romantic certainty, Richard Eyre's production wittily captures the play's self-referential quality: Bob Crowley's set is based on a series of National Theatre. Lyttelton, London SE1 (0171-9282252).

38 Method 229obM Ihm Winter's lala by Shakespeare by Ibsen 'moving in its quiet 'Mike Alfreds' ne simplicity' new staging' TMf TIME Directed by Mike Alfreds Designed by Paul Dart Last 7 performances Box Office 0181 741 2311 aWi aaaVl aflaLm SaflK aaVaaaam aav. aVCaljaaBam. iHjtSl aaBaBaBaBBaaaBar aaaaaaaSr? aaaVlaaaaaW tysari Of The Dame Sadie Lee and going to Buck House for a medal." Over the past six years, obscurity has not been a concern. After a solo show in Manchester City Galleries in 1994, she was selected for the BP Awards in 1995, and Dad has hung the portrait in pride of place above the stairs. Serious, quietly witty and sincere, Sadie Lee's assured work is an impressive tribute to the grand ladies of burlesque.

A Dyng Art Ladias Of Burlesque is at the National Portrait Qatary from Thursday to October 5. Cheny Smyth is the author of Damn Fine Art By New Lesbian Artists, Cassel. 1996. i.