The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 45

mm Arts Music 9 Alex Jennings turns in a memorable performance in John Barton's thrilling production of Peer Gynt in Stratford-upon-Avon A peerless fl Ibsen Michael Billington as boy eternal lifts Jennings onto a new plateau as an actor. When, I kept wondering, shall we see his Hamlet? But the joy of the production is that it treats' the play not just as a star vehicle but as a company show. Gwynne's unforgettable doubling of Aase and Solveig the first time it's been tried in Britain underscores the point that Peer is perpetually searching for his lost mother. And David Killick as a paper-crowned Troll King, Alfred Burke as a dryly inquisitorial Button-Moulder and every single one of the chameleon female chorus add to the show's ensemble weight. What Barton also catches is the story's Shakespearean dimension.

It is partly because, in Louise Belson's design, he uses his familiar device of falling leaves and snowflakes. It is partly because his version, based on Christopher Fry's text, highlights the race of devouring time. But it is also to do with the spirit of generous, all-embracing humanity that pervades every second of this great production. In rep at The Swan (0789-295623). nlng switches from smocked wedding guests to mountain trolls in Wagnerian helmets (we even get a touch of the Ride Of The Valkyrie).

A cascade of feathers evokes Solveig's domestic devotion in the forest hut. And with Haydn Gwynne Freu-dlanly doubling as both Peer's lover and mother, the death of Aase becomes a heartstopping scene in which Peer uses song and role playing disguise to hide his authentic filial hurt. In fact, Barton captures better than any director since Michael Elliott Ibsen's mixture of playful exuberance and moral seriousness. And in the second act Jennings, through his quicksilver transformations, perfectly embodies Ibsen's point about the dangerous tyranny of self. One minute Jennings is a sleek-haired, dark-glassed tycoon, the next a self-styled Oriental prophet and a second later a map-laden European traveller unwittingly trapped in a Cairo madhouse.

He is also superb in the final section of the play: totally bemused by the Button Moulder's injunction "To be yourself is to kill yourself' and retreating into what I take to be a final wish-fulfilling fantasy as he nestles in the lap of his waiting lover. It's a performance that in its suggestion that Peer, while adopting various adult personae, goes through his life FTER the hi-tech debacle of Ninagawa's recent Peer Gynt, we now have La mesmerising produc tion by John Barton at The Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon. Barton, who directed this vast epic poem in Oslo four years ago, not only explores the great Ibsen theme of the barrenness of individualism bnt also makes the work a neo-Shakespearean meditation on time and mortality. Unlike Ninagawa, Barton does this without denying the work's cultural roots. Indeed the first half is like a peasant Singspiel with Per Christian Revholt's brilliant arrangement of Norwegian children's and popular songs threading its way through the action.

And, adopting a light Irish accent, Alex Jennings's Peer is the kind of aspiring, tale-spinning fantasist you find in rural communities down the ages: he is a corduroyed dreamer who identifies with the sky's soaring eagles and who cries "If I want to, I can do anything." What is astonishing, however, is the staging's mixture of virtuosity and humanity. The five-strong female chorus make light-Alex Jennings 'it's a performance that lifts Jennings on to a new plateau as an actor' Everything But The Girl will release their first studio album for two and a half years In a few weeks time. If Is coiled 'Amplified Heart' For advance details of Its release and Information on EP's and lour dates. Join the EBTG moiling list free of charge by sending your name and address on a postcard to -Everything But The Girl Freepost CV 744. 47 Bedford Street.

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Deihim's dubbed voice floats among sitars, Balinese dove whistles and other exotica, adding another dimension to a heavenly collage. THE FALL: Middle Class Revolt Permanent PERMC016 MARK SMITH'S 25th or so album contains the traditional Fall components muddy guitar backing, melodies pinched from the first wave of New Wave and grouchy social commentary. Smith has been grumbling at everything for so long now that there's little to say, other than that one conceivably sing along to the jingling Symbol Of Morgdan. 1RhAMMERH APOLLO 1 THURSDAY 0TH JUNE WITH SPECIAL QUESTS Tickets: 15.00 A 12.50 SL Vt-ha euHriuflan AnlW from mm OOWmmm lHB BUUUUUBB First Cat, Ktlth Pnmst, Prnnlif. Starsrecn, 1 1 TIckimisttfndMNrrnrii A I (ub)w to booking f) Since, when, as they insist in Liar, have "eating meat, hating blacks and beating your wife" all become UANE FOLVi Sweet Mystery Virgin 7243 8 39661 2 7 LIANE FOLY'S English-language debut exemplifies why French singers rarely do well trans-Manche.

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