Theatre Choice

Why bore a child with a children's show (all too often inept and condescending) when there are productions like Adrian Noble's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Barbican? With the Athenian forest magically evoked by free-standing doors and dangling halogen bulbs, it's a piece of staging that would give any child an intoxicating introduction to the imaginative possibilities of theatre.

Two excellent female performances worth catching: in James Stock's Star- Gazy Pie and Sauerkraut (above) at the Royal Court Upstairs, Bridget Turner enthralls as a caustic crone with a Nazi-tainted past, while in Retreat at the Orange Tree, Victoria Hamilton is future stardom incarnate as the girl who disturbs Tim Piggott-Smith's peace.

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