He didn't always know how to use Georges Tsypin's stage designs (a skeletal cathedral, a huge grid of fluorescent lights and dozens of video monitors), but there were unforgettable moments: when St Francis received the stigmata, he lay with blood dripping down the stage, illuminated by pulsating lights and with the monitors stacked like crosses with fire on their screens.Bondy's production of Strauss's Salome also provoked the eye and mind, but in a more consistently brilliant way. The source said: 'Everyone is expecting something, but if the heads of government have nothing to say, it could backfire.'. I believe you can hold the line of ethical standards and dramatically improve performance. Mr Yeltsin went in the afternoon to Moscow's Lenin Komsomol car factory, where he appealed to workers to sign a petition for the referendum.Mr Yeltsin wants to hold the vote next month. Cars like this have always declined fast in recent years, but the problem is worse now because of an oversupply of new luxury cars into the market during the boom three or four years ago.'Despite their early price falls and high upkeep, top-end luxury cars have surprisingly practical attributes, some experts claim. The UN has done nothing to prevent the flouting of an election it supervised and declared 'free and fair'.

Ashtead decided against buying BET's plant-hire operation, picked up last week by Hewden Stuart.Ashtead's capital expenditure last year of pounds 10.5m takes its total for the last three years to pounds 25m, more than half the original cost of the fleet.That attention to maintaining up- to-date plant has pushed gearing up to 50 per cent but kept volumes buoyant. There is also an option to lock in any growth and base the return on 90 per cent of the investment The minimum investment is pounds 5,000.. The cancellation of TASM, costed at pounds 1.8bn, does not help the Government in its immediate financial difficulties. The shadow of the book always hangs over a stage adaptation of a classic novel, and many - even most - never escape it, getting trapped into pedantic rehearsal of the plot.

Some accept motherhood as Princess Anne once famously said she did, as 'a hazard of marriage', which these days is absurd. Trees lock away carbon - they thus lessen the effect of global warming. They may only admit it in private, but most regard them as an unnecessary expense. There are endless family squabbles around the table; a tight-lipped landowner (Alan Howard) who keeps announcing that things are getting hard; various twisted individuals (sex always happens with someone looking on); and the obligatory doom-laden train (it's only a puny local train with two carriages, but no matter, it thunders past like the Orient Express).The dialogue tries for that Pinter mix of portentousness and banality.Sample exchange: 'Raif?' 'What were it like?' 'What?' 'What were it like?With Jen Cross, by the river?' (pause) 'It were nice.' 'I bet it were.' 'It were real nice.' (Pause).'Were it?' The writer, Nick Ward, is experienced in other media (theatre, radio and TV) but this tone and snail's pacing isn't right for film. 73 J McHenry, J Metcalfe, S McAllister, M Allen (US), T Giedeon (Ger), C Platts, M Pinero (Sp), P Broadhurst, H Baiocchi (SA), J Davila (Sp), D R Jones, M Miller, J Bland (SA), A Murray, S Field, E Darcy, A Cejka (Ger), R Drummond, P Lonard (Aus).Selected: 75 M James, P Stewart (US) 78 S Lyle..