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THE SPUNKY heroine of Disney's Mulan (left) cuts a Manga-style figure against an incongruous watercoloured backdrop. Her first-century escapades (thwarting the Hun, don't you know?) are played out to a thumping AOR soundtrack and lots of cheesy showtunes ("when will my reflection show who I am inside?"). And yet, for all that, Mulan is still a delight: supple, witty and topped off beautifully by Eddie Murphy's showboating dragon.
On general release
Tickets are likely to be as rare as hens' teeth for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam's full-throttle (if faintly one-note) take on Hunter Thompson's Gonzo classic. Ignore Benicio Del Toro's incomprehensible delivery and look instead at Johnny Depp; chrome-domed and twitchy as Thompson's drug-guzzling alter-ego.
Odeon West End, London WC2 (0171-930 5252/3) 8.45pm
Pop Tim Perry
WITH A sold-out show at the RFH by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and an appearance by Brazilian contralto Virginia Rodrigues at the Purcell Room, tonight boasts a feast of world sounds at the misleadingly-titled Oris London Jazz Festival. Add to that an appearance by the Paris-based north African supergroup Orchestre National de Barbes. Carrying an awesome live reputation, they mix Algerian rai, gnawa trance and other ethnic styles with rock and jazz, as evidenced on their excellent album, En Concert (Tajmaat/Virgin), released last year.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1 (0171-960 4242) 7.45pm
Hot on the heels of a storming performance at a Liverpool Dockers fundraiser a few weeks ago, the Who's guitarist (left) presents an evening entitled Pete Townshend & Friends. Expect Townshend's usual brilliant guitar work, a set of Who hits and other classics, a band of experienced sessioneers, and, maybe, just a few special guests. Should be good, even if it is pounds 20 a ticket.
Shepherds Bush Empire, London W12 (0171-771 2000) 7.30pm
Comedy James Rampton
JACKIE MASON (right) is unique - well, I can't think of any other former rabbis currently practising as stand-up comedians, can you? As you might imagine, this New York comic's speciality is Jewish jokes. He is, for instance, stunned by Hillary Clinton's forebearance of her husband's infidelity. "Only a gentile would put up with this. She says, `it wasn't really a girl, it was a horse.' If she was Jewish, by now he'd be in a homeless shelter in the Bronx." Mason's new show, Much Ado About Everything, being given a pre-Broadway airing, promises to cover everything from Monica Lewinsky to Viagra, the Internet and The Titanic. Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, London, WC1 (0171-839 4409) 8pm
Eddy Strange, another, rather different American stand-up, possesses an alarming resemblance to Nigel from EastEnders. But beyond that, he is a talented yarn-spinner who majors in sex.
The Bearcat, Twickenham (0181-891 1852) 9.15pm
Theatre Dominic Cavendish
SCARLET THEATRE'S Stranded (below) reworks Italian playwright Ugo Betti's Crime on Goat Island to the company's own, visually stunning, ends. The facts of the story are simple: a sexually intense stranger arrives at a remote house inhabited by a mother, sister-in-law and daughter, and plays havoc with their affections. It is the performances, though, winningly combining a brace of idiosyncratic mannerisms, that gently winch the scenario's comic potential and emotional complexity to the surface.
Young Vic, London SE1 (0171-928 6363) 7.45pm
Back, seemingly by popular demand, Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love is an antiquarian library of a play, stuffed with learned allusion and dense rhetoric, which sits the unrequited homosexual love of AE Housman alongside his scholarly zest for the classics. Ben Porter and John Wood both shine as the man in youth and dotage.
Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London SW1 (0171-930 8800) 7.30pm
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