Choice: Film

Blue in the Face & Smoke, Riverside Studios (0181-237 1111) 6.45pm

Whatever you do, don't confuse Stockard and Carol Channing. Regardless of how she was cast, Carol has only ever given two performances: the gold-digging Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the title role in Hello, Dolly. Stockard (nee Susan) on the other hand has been too versatile for her own good. On stage, she has majored in drama, but she's also got a strong line in screen comedy which famously surfaced in Grease but also provided laughs in such vehicles as the spoof disaster movie The Big Bus and the aliens-in-suburbia joke Meet the Applegates. In Smoke, she camps it up no end as Harvey Keitel's ex-wife who returns wearing an eye-patch and wafting about in nicotine. The campest thing since Bette Davies pulled the same stunt in The Anniversary. Wayne Wang's delightful movie is being shown with the follow-up, which was improvised in the eight days left over from the first film's shooting schedule.

David Benedict