“Mary Stuart” – a riveting political thriller about the Scottish Queen’s challenge to Queen Elizabeth I

About the political and personal struggle between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, the play underlines the eternal reality of struggles for power. Written by Friedrich Schiller in the 18th century and adapted by Peter Oswald, it is a political thriller that gets a memorable staging by Phyllida Lloyd.

Q&A: Tax Havens, Bank Secrecy, and Tricks

Inter Press Service (IPS), July 14, 2009 – At a recent conference in Miami organised by Offshore Alert, a specialised media organisation focused on financial crime, IPS sat down with veteran investigator Bob Roach to discuss the hurdles facing regulators trying to crack down on tax havens, which cost the U.S. alone an estimated 100 billion dollars annually.

“The Norman Conquests” – wry sophisticated comedy in inimitable Ayckbourn style

Alan Ayckbourn’s play is an ultra-sophisticated comedy that verges perilously close to sitcom, then skirts around it. The round-robin of three plays is what the clever British author posits against the normal sequential serial, a “Rashomon” style

“Blithe Spirit” is dated comedy about upper class man who conjures up his dead wife

The idea behind Noel Coward’s play is quite promising. Charles Condomine (Rupert Everett), a middle-aged murder mystery novelist – obviously quite successful in writing or marriage, from the country villa he inhabits – invites a medium (Angela Lansbury)

Exclusive: Florida banking agency helped Stanford set up unregulated office to sell his phony CDs

State aided suspect in huge swindle

Miami Herald, July 5, 2009 –

Years before his banking empire was shut down in a massive fraud case, Allen Stanford swept into Florida with a bold plan: entice Latin Americans to pour millions into his ventures — in secrecy.

From a bayfront office in Miami in 1998, he planned to sell investments to customers and send their money to Antigua.

But to pull it off, he needed unprecedented help from an unlikely ally: The state of Florida would have to grant him the right to move vast amounts of money offshore — without reporting a penny to regulators. He got it.

“Waiting for Godot” – Beckett on the uselessness of expecting God to save us from misery

The mystery of Samuel Beckett’s play about two down-at-the-heels hobos who watch an overbearing “master” abuse a pathetic slave is the division of the audience into those who laugh and those who don’t.