THEATRE / Notices

Rumours are circulating about the chances of a London transfer for the hit Broadway revival of Harnick and Bock's cult musical She Loves Me. Miracle of miracles (as the song goes), London is also to play host to their record-breaking Fiddler on the Roof for the third time. For the third time, too, the central role of Tevye the milkman will be taken by Topol, who first played it in London in February 1967.

Rarely has an actor been so completely associated with a role. In 1983 he returned to it for a limited season at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and in June he reprises it for a further 12 weeks at the London Palladium.

His last appearance there was as the replacement for Len Cariou in the ill-fated Ziegfeld, where he was required to perform a curious double act of playing both narrator and leading role. In order to distinguish between the two for the bemused audience, when playing the narrator he displayed a yellow rose in his button-hole; when playing Ziegfeld, the rose would disappear. Happily, the staging of Fiddler will be altogether more sophisticated, recreating the original by Jerome Robbins.

As the Government continues to discuss whether or not 'Back to Basics' is about personal morality, Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod have just opened the third in their series of sexual morality plays. First there was the scorching sexual / political defiance of Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Then came sexual hypocrisy in the guise of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Now Cheek by Jowl brings you a timely tale of sexual favours and corruption in high places with Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, touring to Norwich this week, followed by dates in Oxford, Darlington and Brighton. Its final appearances will help to boost the beleagured Lyric Hammersmith in July.

Just as you were getting used to radio programmes appearing as TV shows, Central TV comes up with a new twist. In March, Josie Lawrence and Timothy Spall star in Outside Edge, a sitcom based on Richard Harris's stage play of the same name. What next? Someone to Watch Over Me - the hilarious adventures of three Middle-East hostages? A Long Day's Journey into Night - the mini-series? (What a Journey]) Readers are invited to submit further suggestions to Notices for sure-fire theatre-to-TV transfers . . .

(Photograph omitted)