So into the authentic world of British character actors lolling around a crumbling railway station in tatty rags and old shoes

So into the authentic world of British character actors, lolling around a crumbling railway station in tatty rags and old shoes, steps a remote, luminous New Yorker. Brakes screech, air hisses, lights flash, smoke billows: the train arrives, and with it Lauren Bacall. Auburn hair, dark glasses, ghostly face: the Chichester audience are as bewitched by the entrance of a screen icon as the citizens of Guellen are by the arrival of a multi-millionairess. In Terry Hands's production of The Visit the same device applies. Friedrich Durrenmatt set his searing 1956 play in an "economic blackspot", the derelict town of Guellen. But the richest woman in the world, Claire Zachanassian, is returning to her home town. When he played Shylock in Peter Hall's Merchant of Venice, the gap in acting styles increased his character's isolation: he wasn't just a Jew among Gentiles, he was a Yank among Brits.

When he protested that he had no such intention, and besides, he had his hands full with his fretful horse, she was ready with her answer: "Why don't you tie him to that gate?" Down in our valley the sun is golden and the hops are ripe: time for revelry.. AMERICAN film stars who come here to work with UK casts do themselves a favour when they choose the role of the outsider Take Dustin Hoffman. She wailed to a passing horseman that she was sure he would take advantage of her. Usually, parsimonious parsons turned their parsonages into pothouses; gavellers gavelled with flail and swingel, and the hearty women of Fife hurled yeomen to the ground and sat on them until they turned out their pockets This quaint custom was called kippering A winsome winnower found another way to get her kicks. Though miserly farmers tried to get away with watered-down beer, the usual tipple was cider, in 80-gallon casks. Georgina Boyes compiled this montage of songs and readings, which proved less corny (oops) than you might imagine.

In the days before the combine-harvester depopulated the farms, everyone joined in and everyone drank. After personal and professional disasters, the frank but wretched Lazenby, whose performance was once compared, unfavourably, to that of an Easter Island statue, is back at night school, studying acting.Meanwhile, down on the farm, it's autumn, and time to bring the Harvest Home (R2). Jenni Mills draws the best from her subjects, but the very nature of her programme means that they are often sad cases. His one film made him Famous for 15 Minutes (R4), but he'd have done better to stay as the hunk on the Big Fry chocolate ad, or even the hunk selling cars in Queensland. If the little princes had sounded just slightly younger than 35, it would have been the best production I've heard.It was a far cry from the sort of thing required of George Lazenby when they asked him to be James Bond. The production was punctuated by sounds of oak on iron, with occasional echoing, cracked gongs: when Lady Anne spat at Richard, we heard a crab-apple land in an empty galvanised bucket - sorry, what I mean is that Conrad Nelson's music was vigorously emphatic. Even stronger this week, with a harsh, compelling production by Northern Broadsides, starring Barrie Rutter.