Accountants in the public sector are now in demand from the big practices to help them to compete for

"Accountants in the public sector are now in demand from the big practices to help them to compete for contracted-out work, for example, against District Audit," says Katy Nicholson, spokeswoman for Reed Accountancy. The consortia are often looking for private-sector experience.Transferability in skills can work both ways. He adds that many trusts have now formed audit consortia to take over the internal audit functions of hospitals, as well as now competing for work from executive agencies and local authorities. With an increase in the use of performance-related pay, then public bodies' "finance packages are equal to most in the private sector", he says."Health trusts are often looking for the one missing skill, to help them to present themselves in a different way, or to get private finance, and get commercial ideas in," says Mr Slater.

They have a broader involvement in the non-financial management as well."The young high flyer often has more opportunity for early promotion working in public bodies, which operate a meritocracy, paying for the job, while business is more likely to pay for the person's experience, Mr Slater believes. "The hospital accountant now has the whole control of a budget in a department, and has to take decisions on their own about staff. This is particularly true in those parts of the public sector that have been in the forefront of reform. "Health and education offer more responsibility and more advancement than in the private sector, especially post-qualification accountants in their late twenties to mid-thirties," explains Mr Slater. Not only are the public services looking to recruit people with private- sector experience, but they are increasingly offering pay and conditions that compete effectively with business. That is not a true picture," says Adrian Slater, public-sector director of Hays Accountancy Personnel. "The public sector is perceived as promoting only into dead men's shoes, and of being bureaucratic, while the private sector is equated with a big expense account every month. There are 10 pairs of tickets available for both Drop Dead Rock (17 Nov, 10.30pm) and Madagascar Skin (17 Nov, 8pm) for the first readers to ring the festival box-office on 01970 623 232..

Also being shown is Madagascar Skin - a touching Welsh drama in which a shy man, with a large birthmark on one side of his face, embarks on a journey of self-discovery after finding the battered head of a man buried up to his neck in sand. Showing this week at the Welsh International Film Festival in Aberystwyth, is the premiere of Drop Dead Rock, starring pop icons Debbie Harry (right) and Adam Ant. Around him, Ann Louise Ross offers an understated but agonised Gertrude, Max Gold a solid Horatio, and Russell Hunter a fascinating, dignified Polonius.With its orthodox but bold approach, Ireland's production never lets the audience's attention out of its grasp, while revealing fresh perspectives on one of theatre's most familiar stories.n To 2 December Booking: 0131-229 9697 RICHARD LOUP-NOLAN. Elsinore becomes a steeply raked, grey promontory, over which storm clouds race on a great white sail of sheeting. If for nothing else, this production will be remembered for the appearance in gargantuan close-up of Brian Cox as Hamlet's ghostly father, projected on the sky itself. Tom McGovern's tousle-haired Hamlet is not yet fully comfortable with some of the big soliloquies: elsewhere, though, he's fully in control of his material, and his depiction of how Ophelia's rebuttal tips Hamlet from suicidal introspection into a murderous fury is very moving.

Ireland's open-minded vision is beautifully evoked in Robin Don's designs and Ace McCarron's inventive lighting. Having trimmed the text for pace rather than any monocular interpretation of its central character, Ireland approaches the play with great narrative vigour and honesty. Coming down at the end, as the music slipped into silence, was like stepping off a cloud, quietly salubrious.NICHOLAS WILLIAMS. In the third and final production of their autumn season, the Lyceum's cast take on Hamlet, under the direction of their own Kenny Ireland, who seems to have found in Denmark's rotten state a home-from-home.