John Grimshaw has been working on his dream for the past 15 years and last week it came true

John Grimshaw has been working on his dream for the past 15 years and last week it came true. Cameron's spirit may be too generous, but if the development of his characters can be ponderous, he has time for all of them.It is hard not to warm to Denzil Kilvington's Errol as he has to be prodded from his nap with a line prop, and impossible not to be moved by Suzanne Hitchmough as Hayley, an exact, sensitive performance free of sentimentality and caricature. Mike Bradwell's direction is admirably careful not to lean on the music but might use it more, especially to fire an underpowered climax. Michael Taylor's re-creation of a pub concert room contributes to the play's homely attention to ordinary life, an attention characteristic of the new work this theatre presents. Avant-garde it isn't, but it does continue the long, honourable tradition of North Country comedy.'Tartuffe' to 14 Oct (booking: 0161-833 9833); 'With Every Beat' to 14 Oct (booking: 0113 244 2111).

This is a good-hearted comedy which explores the contradictions of selfishness and altruism surrounding Errol's grungy project, sees it teeter on the edge of disaster, but eventually offers redemption. Problems with his beleaguered partner Hayley and their sick son, supporters at odds with suppressed demons of their own, and the sordid struggle for every charitable penny and petty sponsor, could afford a peek into a diorama of contemporary avidity and betrayal.But Richard Cameron's new play With Every Beat has nothing of Moliere's balefulness. But it is Paule Constable's lighting, with its oil-paint atmosphere and searching pitilessness for the folly below, that shows best.Making a drunken vow to break the world record for non-stop drumming - 44 days - would seem to be a particular kind of modern folly, especially since spacey Errol and the work ethic clearly inhabit different astral planes. Roger Lloyd Pack's reptilian Tartuffe slithers knowingly along the line of plausibility, and Hugh Ross as his dupe Orgon is painfully anguished as he recognises the destruction his credulity has brought. Aside from the predominantly monochrome way Robert Delamere and his designer Simon Higlett have dressed it, such sharp concentration is mostly missing from this revival. They are busy and inventive in establishing a bourgeois corner of Louis XIV's Paris, but not only do the decorators' ladders of this social climbing add to the clutter that often masks the action, they stand in place of any consistent vision of the play. Despite being thus distracted, Delamere draws strong performances from an uneven cast.

It is the kind of incisiveness a prose translation - even the often elegant version by Christopher Hampton used here - cannot catch, and it is entirely characteristic of the stark clarity of Moliere's ruthless comedy. It compresses brilliantly the impostor's seductive argument that celestial joy can be had only via the scourge and the hair shirt, as well as slyly mocking Orgon and those others so pathetically unable to see the light which would reveal his deceit. The very first couplet Moliere gives his Tartuffe rhymes discipline and illumine. He never seemed fully in touch with the visionary scope of the piece, however. Where was the grand design and where the attention to nuance and timing which have made many of his performances of the late-romantic repertoire so memorable? Surely not suppressed by an outdated notion of "Classical style"?Gala Opening programme repeated tonight 7.30pm; main season begins on Wednesday (Libor Pesek conducts Tchaikovsky's Pathetique and Stravinsky's Petrushka), Philharmonic Hall, Hope Street, Liverpool Booking: 0151-709 3789. Catherine Robbin's mezzo-soprano was secure and well-placed, but the bass David Thomas struggled with his intonation and Peter Bronder's tenor was under-powered, while Lynne Dawson sang beautifully but joined the distinguished ranks of fine sopranos over-faced by her final ecstatic high B.The orchestra sounded in fine shape and Pesek's interpretation was lucid and well enough prepared.

The Philharmonic Choir strove mightily and sang well in tune but, at about half the realistic size, they were never likely to be able to deliver a true feeling of uplift. The piano tone itself is admittedly still not the most ingratiating, but that may adjust or be adjustable. More worryingly, Pesek was curiously standoffish with the accompaniment and it was not until the Finale that he encouraged the kind of initiatives and responses his soloist so richly deserved.Beethoven's Choral Symphony seemed an ideal choice for the occasion Yet a sense of occasion was precisely what it lacked. The Philharmonic Hall has always nurtured a pleasant, well-blended sound. Now it has a degree more immediacy and analytic clarity, without having lost its bloom So first impressions are of money well spent in this area. The real test began with Mozart's G major Piano Concerto (No 17, K 453), played with much care, intelligence and finesse by Imogen Cooper.

Here the benefits of extensive adjustments to the acoustic could be felt. Half-hearted lighting effects only served to highlight its thinness.But all this was cosmetic. The music had been undemanding and ephemeral, like the accompaniment of a Copland score, only more slackly disciplined. The goodwill was naturally shared by all who came to the Gala Opening on Thursday night, although for some of us it was soon severely strained. We were greeted by musical street entertainment of precisely the oppressive, beat-driven, mind-numbing kind from which a concert hall traditionally offers sanctuary. Once inside, appreciative glances at the handsome new stage and seating turned to scowls at the sub-Paul Klee mobile dominating the back wall, a ghastly dissonance with the hall's restored Art Deco interior. When that mobile began to rotate, towards the climax of Graham Fitkin's World Premiere of Metal, unsuspected depths of daftness were plumbed.