JUNE ARTS DIARY,

A selection of forthcoming events recommended by the Spectator's regular critics.

THEATRE

The Merchant of Venice, Stratford, (0789 296655), New production starring excellent Antony Sher as Shylock. Racial villainy set against Jew-baiting Venetians.

Diary of a Somebody, King's Head (226 1916). Dramatisation of Joe Orton's diaries. Far funnier and more authentic than the film.

Antony and Cleopatra, Olivier (928 2252). Anthony Hopkins and Judy Dench in Peter Hall's intelligent and beautiful production. All the cast excellent. Long evening in the theatre but well worthwhile.

Me and My Girl, Ade1phi (836 7611). Charming revival of 1930s British musical — great fun.

Christo er Edwards

OPE A

Marlon, Covent Garden, 2-26 June (240 1066). Julia Migenes, leading Lady in Rosi's film of Carmen, sings the title role in a new production by Rudolf Noelte, Jeffrey Tate

conducts.

Wozzeck, Vienna State Opera, 12 June. Claudio Abbado conducts a Vienna Festival staging with Hildegard Behrens and Franz Grundheber.

Julius Caesar, Paris Opera, from 20 June. New production by Nicholas Hytner and David Fielding (the prize-winning team responsible for the Coliseum's Xerxes). Valerie Masterson, Graham Pushee and Yvonne Minton in the leads.

Rodney Milnes

DANCE

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Sadler's Wells, 9-20 June (278 8916). Three programmes combine work by Balanchine, Tudor and Paul Taylor with five British premieres by unfamiliar Canadians.

Lindsay Kemp and Company, Sadler's Wells, 23 June-1 July (278 8916). The return of Kemp's signature work, Flowers, plus A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Big Parade.

London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 30 June-4 July (928 3191). This 21st- birthday season includes the world Premiere of Robert North's Fabrications with costumes by Elizabeth Emanuel. Julie Kavanagh

EXHIBITIONS

Winifred Nicholson, Tate, 3 June- 2 August. Full retrospective of the radiant, kindly paintings and gouaches of Winifred Nicholson (1893-1981), an artist rightly

admired by celebiated contemporaries.

Winifred Nicholson & Her Circle, Crane Kalman, 178 Brompton Rd, SW3, 4 June-4 July. A complementary show arranged by the artist's friend and commercial dealer during the last 25 years of her life. A chance to see the work in context.

Stanley Spencer, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookharn, through '87. Surprising how many people have

Detail from 'Christ preaching at Cookham Regatta' by Stanley Spencer

still to visit idyllic Cookham and the gallery set up 25 years ago to honour the village's most passionate champion.

219th Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy 6 June-23 August. Strange to say, the annual spectacular draws fewer visitors now than 100 years ago. Whether the paintings are worse or the competitive attractions better one would not care to guess.

Bryan Kneale: Bone Drawings & Sculpture, Fitzwilliarn, Cambridge, till 28 June. Outstanding anatomical studies by former painter and current Professor of Sculpture at the RA Schools.

Giles Auty

MUSIC

Bath Festival, till 7 June, this year has a Russian theme. Note especially their International Pianists series: Shura Cherkassky on 1 June, Paul Crossley on 4 June and Stephen Bishop-Kosacevich on 5 June.

The Manchester Summer Recitals, live on Radio 3 on Thursdays at 1.05 p.m., include John Ogden on 11 June playing Allcan and Liszt, and the Nash Ensemble on 18 June playing Debussy, Ravel and Francaix.

The Spitalfields Festival, 2-24 June, has a recital by St Paul's Cathedral choir (to include Allegri's Miserere) on 3 June; the closing concert on 24 June is to be a complete concert performance of Gluck's 1phigenie en Aulide, conducted by Richard Hickox. Peter Phillips

CINEMA

Prick Up Your Ears (18). Short life and gay times of Joe Orton: acute and funny Alan Bennett screenplay.

That's Life (15). Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews in a sour comedy by Blake Edwards; an egotist approaches old age, which in California begins at 60.

Desert Bloom (PG). Growing up in Nevada in the 1950s, where a wholesome treat for the family is a day out to watch the A-bomb tests, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, ICA from 5 June for one week, Film of the 'neurological opera' by Michael Nyman, based on one of Oliver Sacks's absorbing and frightening case histories.

Hilary Mantel

SALE-ROOMS

DECORATIVE ARTS: Bonhams, 5 June (584-9161). The auction houses have responded to the recent decorative boom with their own specialist sales, though in their terminology decorative means Art Nouveau or Deco. The star piece in this sale is an Archibald Knox (Liberty's) pewter jug.

CRICKETING MEMORABILIA: Phillips, 17 June (629-6602). Coinciding with the first Test at Lords, Phillips are attempting to follow the success of Christie's Lords sale. A complete Wisden is estimated at £8,000.

Alistair Hicks

POP MUSIC

U2 & Hurrah, Wembley Stadium, 12,13 June. U2's atmospheric Celtic melodrama and Hurrah's greasy atavism should make an interesting combination — if you get within a mile of the stage.

Peter Gabriel, Earls Court, 25, 26, 27, 28 June. Gabriel's So album was a vast and deserved success last year and he's experienced enough a stage performer to make these shows a potential highlight of the summer. Marcus Berkmann

GARDENS

Achnacloich, Connel, Argyll. Open daily until 14 June, 10.00-5.00; late rhododendrons and azaleas in beautifully set garden, with view of Loch Etive.

Vann, Hambledon, Surrey, Open 21-27 June, 10.00-6.00. 41/2 acres of garden round the house which is basically Tudor and William-and- Mary but has 20th-century additions by W.D. Caroe. Includes Gertrude Jekyll water garden.

Chilcombe Rouse, Dorset. Sunday, 21 June, 2.00-6.30. Developed by artist John Hubbard and his wife Caryl. A garden divided into compartments, in fine setting.

Ursula Buchan