six of the best buys this weekend

SIX GOOD MEMBERS' SCHEMES

1. A Friend of the Royal Opera House pounds 17 to $41. Priority booking plus access to dress rehearsals (0171 240 1200).

2. ICA pounds 25. Free admission, discounts, mailing, priority booking (0171 930 3647)

3. The Royal Shakespeare Company pounds 6 to pounds 20. Priority booking, bi-annual magazine, offers (01789 205301)

4. The West Yorkshire Playhouse pounds 5. Priority booking, theatrical trips, preview parties, talks... (0113 2442111).

5. A Friend of Shakespeare's Globe pounds 15 Priority booking - really a fund- raiser .(0171 620 0202)

6. The Glyndebourne Society pounds 100. Priority booking. That's all. Interested?

SIX GOOD POP CDs

1. Shabba Ranks: A Mi Shabba (Epic EPC 477482 2) As horny as ever.

2. Soul Asylum: Let Your Dim Light Shine (Columbia COL 480320 2) Bedsit bard lyrics for the grunge generation.

3. Blessid Union of Souls: Home (EMI CDEMC 3708) They call it rural soul.

4. White Zombie: Astro-Creep 2000 (Geffen GED 24806) Industrial thrash- metallists with psychobilly attitude.

5. Bjork: Post (One Little Indian TPLP 51) Petulance, hedonism, skittishness.

6. Van Morrison: Days Like This (Polydor 527307 2) This is his best album for years - swingy, inventive and quietly amused.

SIX GOOD CLASSICAL CDs

1. Bach: Goldberg Variations (transcribed Sitkovetsky)/ NES Chamber Orchestra (Elektra Nonesuch 7559-79341-2) Extraordinary.

2. Wagner Overtures and Preludes: New Queen's Hall Orchestra (EOS 5001) Promises a "whole new meaning to authenticity".

3. Ravel/Debussy String Quartets: Lindsay Quartet (ASV CD DCA 930) The Lindsays bring an expressive openness to this coupling.

4. The Incomparable Alfredo Kraus (Philips 442 785-2) The fourth - and best - tenor.

5. Holst: The Planets. Grainger: The Warriors (DG 445 860-2) John Eliot Gardiner puts the Percy back into Grainger.

6. Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op 2 (Sony SK 64397) With Murray Perahia on piano.

SIX GOOD VIDEOS

1. Suede: Introducing the Band (Wienerworld; pounds 12.99) The most visceral live video since Suede's last one.

2. The Harder They Come (18; Arthouse; pounds 12.99) Ballsy 1972 Jamaican thriller with reggae star Jimmy Cliff.

3. The Specialist (15; Warner; Rental). Hilarious thriller with Sylvester Stallone.

4. Sirens (15; Touchstone; Rental) Surprisingly pithy comedy with Hugh Grant and Tara Fitzgerald.

5. Captives (15; Entertainment; Rental) A failure but for the electric rapport between Julia Ormond and Tim Roth.

6. Threesome (18; Columbia; Rental). Tour of the living hell that is adolescence.

SIX GOOD CARTOONS

1. William Heath Robinson: The Sixth Column Frustrate an Attempt by the Fifth... (above, pounds 1,750, Chris Beetles, London).

2. James Gilray: The Bridal Night (pounds 850, Andrew Edmunds, London) A classic Gilray.

3. Henry May Bateman: The Dud Shilling (pounds 200, Chelwood Gallery, Cheltenham) A Scotsman looks at the coin in his hand.

4. Michael Heath (pounds 150, Abbott and Holder, London) A moonlighting bishop.

5. Chris Riddell: Same Old Labour Party (pounds 220, Jack Duncan Books,York) A triple caricature of Major, Clarke and Portillo.

6. William Heath: Take Care of Your Pockets (pounds 55, Finbar Macdonald, London) Peel and Wellington dressed as vagabonds.

SIX GOOD DANCE BOOKS

1. Peter Watson: Nureyev (Hodder & Stoughton, pounds 20.00) Dishes the dirt.

2. Otis Stuart: Perpetual Motion (Simon & Schuster. pounds 17.99) A more rounded picture of Nureyev's life.

3. Ramsay Burt: The Male Dancer (Routledge, pounds l2.99) The first serious study of the male dancer.

4. Lincoln Kirstein: Mosaic (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, pounds 18.99) New York City Ballet supremo remembers his youth.

5 Rusty E. Frank: Tap! (Da Capo Press, pounds 16.95) An illustrated history of tap.

6. Alvin Ailey: Revelations. (Birch Lane Press, pounds 14,95) The black American dancer reveals all.