Conquest, Herefordshire in £500,000 millennium Lottery grant plea More than a half a million pounds could be spent upgrading the Conquest Theatre in Bromyard, Herefordshire, to prepare the venue for the next century. The venue is preparing a Lottery bid to boost its image and dra

Swedes flock to Abba show STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN Swedish visitors are pouring into Britain to see the new Abba musical Mamma Mia!, the British Tourist Authority has revealed, writes Jeremy Austin. The nation that begat the popular seventies pop group is now flocking to see the play, a

BY JEREMY ECCLES SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA The next international dance spectacular will not be Irish, Brazilian, or any other single nationality. Burn the Floor, put together by Anglo-Australian producer Harley Medcalf with funding from Polygram, is intended to launch ballroom... danci

BY PATRICK NEWLEY NEW YORK, USA One of the world's best known speciality acts, Senor Wences, the Spanish-born ventriloquist, has died in New York at the age of 103. He appeared regularly on TV with Milton Berle, Jack Benny and Ed Sullivan from the forties until the sixties. In 1

Twiggy's Broadway return NEW YORK, USA Twiggy returns to the New York stage for the first time in almost 20 years since her Tony-winning triumph on Broadway in My One and Only. On June 10, after previews, she opens in Sheridan Morley's musical biography of Noel Coward and Gertrud

As Scotland votes for its new assembly, Hamish Glen ponders over what autonomy will mean for theatre north of the border Today, voters go to the polls to elect the first Scottish parliament for 300 years. By the year 2000, we shall be, for the most part, running our own affairs.

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Blackpool's very own Billie-a chart-topping teenage singer to us oldies- is on the rise in the shape of Shelley Timmins, who has three years to catch up on her model. The 14-year-old stunned a packed Talbot Conservative Club audience by scooping first place in the venue's annual

Gate 45 Young Vic Studio Perhaps someone should have a quiet word with A Quiet Word, the company behind what was nothing less than a staggeringly pretentious piece which brought to life the old saying about talking for an hour without actually saying anything. Set in an airport b

A Saint She Ain't King's Head Monsieur Moliere meets Snavely T Bogle in this delicious send-up of Sganarelle, crisply staged by Ned Sherrin as a morale-building movie musical from the glory days when Tinseltown sent the Yanks to war with an Andrews Sisters ditty and a Grable pin-