WINDSORS IN TIGHTS.(The Talk of the Town)(Diana the Princess)(Dance Review)

If the forthcoming nuptials of the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles are to be celebrated in a work of art, what form should that work take? A set of postage stamps is to be issued (English stamps are adhesive these days, thus depriving squeamish citizens of the need to lick Charles and Camilla on the reverse), but stamps fall short of art. How about a life-size bronze, nailed to a plinth in Trafalgar Square? A double portrait by Lucian Freud, perhaps, with the lovers' likeness caught in an inch-thick crust of scumbled paint? Or how about this: His Royal Highness, twirling around a stage in a dark suit, his neck gripped securely in the thighs of a riding-coated Mrs. Parker Bowles, his face engaged directly with her jodhpurs?

Such was the scene that greeted the audience at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, England, in the middle of "Diana the Princess." This is the latest offering from the Danish choreographer Peter Schaufuss, who knew the Princess when he was the artistic director of the English National Ballet, and who has now dramatized the sorry, radiant story of her time in the public glare. This is Diana as she would have liked to be remembered: dashing around for an hour and a half in a tight white catsuit. On every hand, there are men and women literally dancing attendance upon her: Beefeaters, aids patients, paparazzi--the usual crowd. Also present are Her Majesty the Queen and her close family, each of them interpreted by the member of the Schaufuss company who bears the least resemblance to the royal in question. The last time one saw the real Princess Anne, for example, her skirt was not slashed to the top of the thigh. Then there is Martin Dutton, a spirited but slender performer who makes Donald O'Connor look like Prince Andrew. He plays Prince Andrew.

Most people's reaction, on hearing of this show, was one of relief: here, in a cynical world, was a chance for some undiluted, nineteen-eighties kitsch, as comforting as a girls' night in with a DVD of "Flashdance." And what did we find? An unsmiling postmortem of the imperialist power structure, gracefully choreographed and often dismayingly tasteful. The fact that so much of royal conduct is embodied in physical gesture makes it fertile ground for any dancer, and we are duly treated to a Charles who dances with one hand in his jacket pocket and to that coy, come-hither, chin-in-hands look that Diana made her own. The first half of the program, especially, is dotted with affecting ...