Sinners and winners .sx Dahl says farewell with an enchanting tale of naughtiness .sx by NANETTE NEWMAN .sx FEW writers have achieved the mass acclaim and devotion that Roald Dahl elicits from his young readers .sx He has created a style that allows imagination a free rein , encourages healthy rebellion , is funny and inventive and cocks a snook at convention .sx He had that rare gift , the ability to write books that children want to read , and his final story , The Minpins ( Cape pounds8 .sx 99 ) , will not disappoint his followers .sx It begins with little Billy , tired of being good , gazing out of the window .sx His mother is always telling him the things he is allowed to do ( which are boring ) and the things he is not allowed to do ( which are exciting) .sx One of the things he is never , ever allowed to do is the most exciting of all - and that is to go through the garden gate and explore the world beyond .sx Right from the beginning we know we are only a turned page away from Billy disobeying his mother and doing just that .sx In spite of her warning - " Beware , beware the forest of Sin , none come out but many go in , " and the threat that he will encounter the Terrible Bloodsuckling , Toothpluckling , Stonechuckling Spittler - Billy goes through the gates into the black , secret wood .sx While trying to escape from the fearsome Gruncher who bellows orange-red smoke , Billy climbs a tree and discovers the Minpins - tiny families no bigger than a matchstick who live in trees and wear welly-type suction boots to enable them to walk up and down branches , defying gravity .sx Adventures Dahl leads Billy through many scary adventures , finally landing him back , safe and sound ( and a hero to boot ) , in his own home .sx When his mother asks him what he's been up to , he replies with blatant untruthfulness :sx " I'm being very , very good .sx " .sx Billy's magical and amazing adventures are enchantingly visualised in Patrick Benson's superb illustrations .sx This is a splendidly produced book , which has all the makings of a winner .sx The last sentence in the story reads :sx " Those who don't believe in magic will never find it .sx " .sx Roald Dahl found it and wrote about it in a way that will enchant generations to come .sx Viv hits the spot on a slow wicket .sx David Thomas .sx TV REVIEW .sx FORGET sunshine and fresh air .sx For us armchair sportsmen the summer is a season of long afternoons spent sprawled in front of the box , cans of beer strategically situated around the living room , and the family despatched on a day trip to granny .sx Midway through the first afternoon of the Fourth Test ( BBC , Thursday-Monday ) I had almost been lulled into sleep by the BBC's most deadly commentating duo , Jack Bannister and Tom Graveney .sx But then years of training as a professional couch potato really came into their own .sx Slipped I was able to maintain my concentration for long enough to glimpse the most highly prized sight in modern Test cricket - Viv Richards' bald spot .sx Yes , the King of the Caribbean slipped while attempting to field the ball and there it was , an unmistakable flash of bare scalp where once his mighty tresses grew .sx If concentration is an important virtue , so is team selection .sx Much the most controversial example of this was the omission of Geoffrey Boycott from the Beeb's opening attack .sx The curmudgeonly Yorkshireman has been slated by some critics .sx Apparently , he isn't nice enough to England's cricketers .sx But if he is never slow to criticise , he is also generous to a fault on those rare occasions when praise is deserved .sx And Boycott has one other gift :sx He points out things the average viewer would not notice .sx This is the key Test of any sporting pundit - and about 90 per cent of TV's rentamouths fail it .sx I can only hope Our Geoffrey's absence was merely temporary .sx Test cricket is TV sport's answer to the mini-series .sx The only difference is that you get to see hours of Graham Gooch and Curtly Ambrose instead of Jane Seymour and Sir John Gielgud .sx There is something genuinely terrifying about the sight of Curtly pounding in at full speed to shatter another set of English stumps .sx Which is more than can be said for Chimera ( ITV , Sunday) .sx The series has become progressively sillier and is in great danger of ceasing to be entertaining junk and becoming merely irritating .sx One cause of this is the complete humourlessness of everyone concerned .sx Good thrillers benefit from the occasional wisecrack but Chimera's actors all have their jaws clenched as tightly as their buttocks .sx Glimpses Then there's the monster .sx It's half man , half monkey and completely unfrightening .sx A bit like Terry Wogan , except that Terry's half man , half wallet .sx Last Monday ( BBC1 ) he interviewed Madonna , who is half woman , half bra .sx It was fascinating , partly because Madonna is an extraordinary woman , and partly because one kept catching glimpses of the intelligence that lurks behind Wogan's bland , self-satisfied mask .sx Wogan could have been a man whose perceptiveness and charm drew genuine insights from his guest .sx But he made the career decision to turn down the challenge to his intellect and rely on easy , idle chatter .sx Famous One thousand shows later , he's rich , famous and successful .sx But surely there's more to life than patting knees and being smug ?sx Let me end as I began , with sport .sx For the past few weeks LWT has been broadcasting The Game ( Friday ) , a programme devoted to Sunday morning football , as played on Hackney Marshes .sx The players move with the grace and speed of geriatric rhinos .sx Big-bellied and out of breath , they are a chilling reminder that when we scream , " I could do better than that !sx " at some hapless pro-footballer , we're lying .sx The Game is riveting :sx other ITV regions should give local pub sides the same chance to achieve a moment of sporting immortality and give long-suffering wives and girlfriends the best laugh they've had in years .sx Maid in the grand style .sx Clive Hirschhorn .sx BALLERINA Natalia Makarova certainly looks - and sounds - like a Russian grand duchess .sx Indeed , on paper she is perfect casting for Tatiana Petrovna , the heroine of Jacques Deval's 1934 comedy Tovarich ( Chichester Theatre ) .sx The fact that she is still somewhat tentative in the role and that her command of English is rather less secure than her arabesques , are minor blemishes .sx Aristocrat She brings star quality to the role of an aristocrat who , with her husband Prince Mikhail , fetches up in Paris after the Revolution .sx Poverty stricken , Tatiana and her Prince ( Robert Powell ) hide their real identities and become maid and butler to the wealthy Parisian family Arbeziat .sx Their successful deception is the fulcrum on which Deval's enjoyable jape pivots and it fleshes out an evening that begins slowly , gathers momentum but loses steam as it wordily chugs towards the finale .sx For Powell , who made his name playing Czar Nicholas opposite Janet Suzman's Alexandra , the part is something of a homecoming and he fills it splendidly .sx Patrick Garland's well - paced and enjoyable production also benefits from Sarah Badel and Rowland Davies , as the Arbeziats , and Tony Britton as a Bolshevik .sx square THOUGH farce has rarely sat comfortably on musical comedy , The Boys From Syracuse ( Regent's Park ) by Richard Rodgers , Lorenz Hart and George Abbott ( based on the Comedy of Errors ) , remains a crowd pleaser .sx All about the confusion wrought by two sets of identical master-servant twins in the town of Ephesus , it is spiritedly directed by Judi Dench .sx Gavin Muir and Richard O'Callaghan as the brothers Dromio , and Bill Homewood and Peter Woodward as the servants , have splendid opportunities for clowning - and cloning .sx Harmony The women aren't bad , either .sx Louise Gold , Gilian Bevan and Jenny Calloway are collective show stoppers as they trill , in close harmony , Sing For Your Supper .sx Weather permitting , you are in for a good time .sx square SIAN PHILLIPS looks great , but mouths a most bizarre Deep South accent in John Lahr's clever adaptation of Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate ( Lyric , Hammersmith ) .sx Updated from Korea to the aftermath of the Gulf War , with fear of Japanese economic power replacing commie phobia , Robin Midgley's busy production of Condon's prophetic thriller still packs a punch .sx But the movie is better .sx Butter-fingered monster is a cut above the rest .sx Snip goes a new star .sx Clive Hirschhorn .sx TIM BURTON'S Edward Scissorhands ( PG ) stylishly recycles the legend of Frankenstein's monster , relocates it to middle America in the 1960s and illustrates , in ravishing pastel colours and stylised sets , the poignant story of young Edward ( Johnny Depp ) whose creator ( Vincent Price ) endowed him with razor-like scissors rather than hands .sx Though Edward is a lot better looking than Mary Shelley's durable creation , what he has in common with his predecessor is that he is basically a very nice guy .sx And talented , too , being adept at hedge-making , dog-trimming and hair-styling .sx Thus , when he is rescued from his Gothic hill-top mansion by a local Avon Lady ( Dianne Wiest ) he becomes something of a celebrity .sx It is only after he rejects the amorous advances of a manipulative neighbour ( Kathy Baker ) , thereby incurring her hatred , that things turn nasty and the misunderstood Edward is hounded back to his lonely hill-top existence .sx Narratively speaking the story couldn't be simpler , nor more familiar .sx Unanswered What makes it special ( despite such unanswered questions as why the decrepit mansion hadn't been broken into by the locals a long time ago , or why the inventor endowed his creation with blades in the first place ) is its look .sx Also contributing to its success are Burton's magical , fairy-tale approach to the story , and Johnny Depp's expressively inexpressive central performance .sx In fact , all the performances score .sx Dianne Wiest skilfully avoids caricature as the compassionate Avon Lady , Alan Arkin is just right as her accommodating husband and Winona Ryder - as their teenage daughter - manages to make plausible her attraction for Edward , though she knows he can never embrace her .sx And it is always nice to see - even in a cameo role - veteran horror merchant Vincent Price .sx Although it evokes such classic horror movies as Frankenstein and The Beast With Five Fingers , its look and atmosphere is uniquely its own .sx Like the best fairy-tales , Edward Scissorhands resonates long after you've left the cinema .sx Lively exile is out to lay his African ghosts to rest .sx by William Boyd .sx THE child is father to the man , so Wordsworth said , and a happy childhood will cast a glow over an adult life that exerts a constant influence .sx If have often wondered if a colonial childhood , or more precisely an African one , multiplies this general effect several fold .sx There seems to be an irresistible tug of nostalgia that operates whenever that continent is involved .sx Graham Lord's book , Ghosts Of King Solomon's Mines ( Sinclair Stevenson , pounds16 .sx 95 ) , is a fine testimonial to this effect .sx Born and raised in Zimbabwe ( then Rhodesia ) and Mozambique in the Forties and Fifties , Lord quit Africa as a teenager to go up to Cambridge .sx Thirty years later the opportunity to return to the Dark Continent presented itself and this is the result , a lively blend of autobiography , travelogue and reportage that revisits key locations of Lord's youth and fills in the troubled history of the intervening years .sx In addition there are interviews with significant players in Central African colonial politics :sx Garfield Todd , Sir Roy Welensky and Ian Smith .sx Lord writes with a candour and a nicely sceptical and unsentimental eye , that make these portraits singularly vivid .sx This same candour and freshness is also apparent in the book's more personal sections .sx Zimbabwe was known as " The jewel of Africa " and Lord finds , after his years abroad , much still to celebrate and admire .sx By strong contrast Mozambique now enjoys the unhappy sobriquet of 'Africa's sewer' and Lord's sojourn there is typically hellish :sx Heat , stench , apathy , grinding poverty .sx Everything has changed - and for the worse .sx Perhaps this is what makes Africa's appeal so potent :sx The quality of its joy is as marked as its despair .sx Your life there is characterised by an intensity - benign and sinister - that produces memories and reveries that will haunt you for ever .sx At the end of the book Lord declares that he will never return , that the " ghosts " of his past have been finally laid .sx