FIRST NIGHT: Not About Nightingales: National Theatre, London

FIRST NIGHT Not About Nightingales National Theatre, London

23: HOW TO MAKE PRISON NOISES

Passion and travel are permanently entwined. To celebrate the first Valentine's Day to fall on a Saturday for 10 years, the travel section is offering prizes you'll love in our first `smooch your way around the world' quiz

The Glass Menagerie Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Kevin Spacey, Juliette Binoche (pictured), Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams... and `Doctor Dolittle'. The coming theatrical year promises much

Shirley Crabtree ("Big Daddy"), wrestler: born Halifax, West Yorkshire 1937; twice married (six children); died Halifax 2 December 1997.

Elaine Stritch, the grand old dame of Broadway, asks David Benedict: who are you calling elderly?

A lost play by Euripides has been brought back to life by Kenneth McLeish. Robert Hanks talks to Nick Philippou, artistic director of the Actors Touring Company, about his efforts to resurrect ancient myths for today.

American Southerners, worried that their accent is an impediment to career progress, are taking lessons in how to speak proper American English. "It's like learning Spanish or learning French," says Catherine Irwin, from North Carolina. "It's like learning a different language. It's very hard."

Theatre

An Enormous amount of care and attention goes into picking the right actor. And yet, remarkably, the choices that prevail in finding the right play for the right venue are often haphazard. In this respect, Katie Mitchell, artistic director at the Other Place in Stratford, is a rare exception. For Beckett Shorts, Mitchell has assembled two programmes of three Samuel Beckett plays. At the venue, she guides an audience of 60 through six different spaces (some with seats, some without) that constantly alter our expectation of what we are about to see. If these pieces were on a continuous loop they could be shown at the Tate: they are, in effect, installations. This is the Magical Misery Tour.

Kurt Vonnegut, `Timequake', Jonathan Cape, pounds 15.99

They are a revealing glimpse of the famous and glamorous of a bygone era. An exhibition of work by the Canadian photographer Roloff Beny provides an insight into the lives of some of the personalities who dominated the cultural stage from the 1950s onwards, including Laurence Olivier, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev and Coco Chanel.