The London rehabilitation of George Bernard Shaw continues with this thrilling revival of Major Barbara. Simon Russell Beale shines in the role of Undershaft.

The re-casting of The Sound of Music has caused a once commendably eccentric, even moving production to morph into a conventional and routine one.

Legal Fictions, two one-act plays by John Mortimer, are slender divertissements, not up to his usual high standards. Where's Rumpole when we need him?

Harold Pinter's The Homecoming is the toast of two theatre capitals. Who could have imagined that a play with so seemingly specific a text, could be played in two such different ways.

If Noel Coward's The Vortex merits a visit-and it does- it's to witness a playwright, who in later life kept his Private Lives guarded , laying himself bare.

This revival of Jean Anouilh's Ring Round the Moon falls mostly flat. It reminds one yet again, that airiness and sophistication can be the hardest qualities to achieve on stage.

Michael Pennington's Sweet William is a seamless example of the thespian art. It should be essential viewing for all students of the Bard, not to mention those who need a reminder of the sheer applicability of his canon to the way we lived then and still do now.

The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other may be about nothing more than its admittedly unusual concept. Whatever it is, it's the nearest we've had so far this year to the theater's generally untapped potential as Rorschach test.

David Mamet's Speed-the- Plow is a bruising morality play about, of all things, Hollywood. The play ends on an upbeat note...but that's not necessarily a happy ending.

Yet another revival of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. This one is okay, with a domineering Lady Bracknell, in the person of Penelope Keith. No surprises, but enjoyable.