But without it spoofs like Jack and Jeremy's Police 4 C4 would go the way of the dodo

But without it, spoofs like Jack and Jeremy's Police 4 (C4) would go the way of the dodo. The parody is a parasitical genre, and unfortunately the survival of the parasite rests on that of the host organism. In the best of all possible worlds, 999 would not exist. This is not just because no one has need of the emergency services in Utopia, but also because no one derives entertainment from the misfortune of others. But his ostensible smugness makes that final, upturned-palms, shrug gesture seem facetious rather than charming.n At the ROH 8, 10, and 12 May (0171-304 4000). Darcey Bussell's talent is shamefully wasted in the Prostitute role, but Ashley Page, as the repulsive Count, is marvellously lured when inviting the Actress to sit on his lap (and much more).Things improve with the arrival of Ashton's Rhapsody (1980), now boasting new designs.

Kumakawa brings formidable technical skill to the role, and he triumphs in feats of staggering virtuosity which include countless multiple pirouettes and some corkscrew jumps in which his body is propelled almost horizontally across the stage. Based on Reigen, Arthur Schnitzler's notorious play of sexual dalliance in fin de sicle Vienna (written 1896/7, but not performed in public until 1920), Tetley's ballet turns the work's series of affairs into an interminable round of perfunctory groping. All of its four dancers - unlike the cardboard cut-out period cast of Glen Tetley's La Ronde - emerge as singular characters in whom we want to take an interest.The less said about La Ronde, the better. Danced to an on-off amplification of music by Bach for solo violin, Steptext is tinged with a more satisfying aimlessness and insufficiency, its choreographic arrangements more accomplished than the inchoate meanderings of Firstext. With the choreographer wilfully breaking up any strand of order or continuity that begins to form, Firstext translates as deconstruction informed not by rigorous analysis but by a tendency to lazy amorphousness.While in Firstext the dancers frequently approach the actors' partnering as if it were a chore rather than a potential pleasure, Steptext offers a more intriguing scenario featuring Deborah Bull as the recalcitrant but vulnerable female whose attachment to Zoltan Solymosi does not stop her testing the waters with both Tetsuya Kumakawa and Peter Abegglen. A male trio - Peter Abegglen and Matthews Dibble and Hart - enters, and two soloists, Benazir Hussein and Adam Cooper, complete the motley crew. But, for the most part, Forsythe presents six individuals whose moves are fractured, detached and generally self-serving.

But far more humorous was the decision to bring up the house lights again once the disorientated were seated. In fact, throughout Firstext the audience is more visible than the dancers, as much of the work takes place under Forsythe's typically dim lighting. On a strip-backed stage,Sylvie Guillem skulks around, all feline prowess and cool nonchalance as she demonstrates her familiar vocabulary of sinuous contortions. To witness groups of latecomers stumbling up and down aisles plunged into darkness was amusing enough. A word of advice for anyone intending to see the Royal Ballet's latest triple bill: go to your seat early and keep an eye on what the press officer refers to as the "pre-performance activities" attached to William Forsythe's new work, Firstext. I won't spoil the fun by describing them, but Forsythe and his collaborators - Dana Caspersen and Antony Rizzi - must be applauded for giving the take-your-time brigade a lesson in punctuality. By the end, the girl (Shirley Henderson) earlier seen setting off to be an actress, has slept with the devil, and her baby has been left to die of exposure by Harriet. It's an odd CV, but I think the play wants us to think it will stand her in good stead..

But neither the script nor Matthew Lloyd's vivid production (which also has a Howard Barker-ish feel in its tragic jokiness) convince you that there aren't two plays here masquerading as one. The above speech, one of the intelligible ones, is delivered by Harriet's wet nurse, the formidable tinker Bidie (Carol Ann Crawford) Through her, the story of the maiden stone is re-enacted. Astride a cart pulled by her wild brood of children, she is now the pursuer rather than the pursued, hunting down her diabolic former husband.The play's best sections are those where this latter, a mysterious travelling tinker, splendidly performed by Alexander Morton, drives disastrous bargains with other characters. he just tugged the pleasure out of me, like my holy well with laughing...": a good deal of the play is written in the Doric dialect, and at times you feel subtitles would be appropriate. Why, for example, are they battling through snowy north-east Scotland when a winter tour of the south would be the saner solution?"Ay, I had a man, a bonny loon... But the conditions of such touring remain irritatingly unclear. Munro has apparently based this character's career (on-the-road pregnancies etc) on documentary evidence.