Round and Round the Garden

A superb cast vigorously essays the third in Alan Ayckbourn's intricately plotted NORMAN CONQUESTS (1974), a comic trilogy of stage plays about a suburban British Lothario. Each one depicts roughly the same events, but from different points of view. This cast has also recorded the first two installments. This is the best of the three and, because of subject matter more suited to tragedy than to humor, the most difficult to pull off. Flawlessly directed, the production suffers slightly from the necessity of combining aspects of studio-based and live-audience production. It just doesn't work. The uncredited engineer, however, has done a fine job of thrusting the performers dynamically into the foreground and capturing all their sparkle. Y.R. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine