Still, Cooper's maternal combination of devotion and crushing wrath is formidably convincing. Minnie's slide from anxious sweetness to bitter nagging is astutely charted by Walters (the director's daughter) whilst Steven Elder, playing Luther's stay-at-home brother Joe, steals the show, oscillating between suppressed ardour and mean, simmering rage.Marital bliss descends into more gory carnage at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Mister Heracles, Simon Armitage's re-write of Euripides This is a particularly bold modernisation of the Greek myth. Instead of slaying the Hydra and mucking out the stables of Augeas, our titular man of action (Adrian Bower in fatigues) has reportedly capped blazing oil wells and buried nuclear waste.In fact, he's a contemporary Everyhero - a sportsman, secret agent, dreamboat and an astronaut - at one point glimpsed hauntingly drifting in star-spangled space. But then, coming back to earth, Heracles - in a fit of madness - tragically slaughters his wife, Megara, and his children.This production is decidedly hit-and-miss. The updating of the Ancient World - sci-fi gadgets included - can be strained. Co-directors Natasha Betteridge and Simon Godwin encourage stiff tableaux and Clare McCarron's Megara bids farewell to her infants with robotic rigidity. Armitage, best known as a poet, also overloads his dialogue with compacted metaphors.Yet, when allowed to breathe, this verse drama is exquisitely lyrical.

Bower becomes arrestingly poignant in his last scene as he reels with grief. This Heracles is a psychologically damaged soldier and a pointedly human labourer who bemoans socio-political rather than celestial injustices. At the same time, in Armitage's godless universe, he's a man who can - perhaps heroically - stagger away to forge for himself a better future.'Love's Labour's Lost': Gardner Arts Centre, Brighton (01273 685861), to Saturday and touring to 28 April; 'The Daughter in Law': Orange Tree, Richmond (020 8940 3633), to 24 March: 'Mister Heracles': West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds (0113 213 7700), to 17 March. A feeding frenzy has broken out among publishers as they sign up star writers such as Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy for Hollywood-size advances that are spiralling towards the first $50m book deal. A feeding frenzy has broken out among publishers as they sign up star writers such as Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy for Hollywood-size advances that are spiralling towards the first $50m book deal. In America, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, recently secured a $40m (£27m) two-book deal from HarperCollins. Tom Clancy, who wrote The Hunt for Red October, has bagged $45m from Penguin Putnam for two books. The deals include British publishing rights, but not film rights."We are going through a spiral of very high advances," says Martin Nield, managing director of Hodder and Stoughton.

He describes a "feeding frenzy" which breaks out every time a hot property author comes on to the market.The latest is Stephen Carter, a black Yale law professor, who has just become the highest-paid first novelist in history with a $4m US deal for his first two novels. Publishers are this week competing in an auction of the British rights.Money is now flowing into the coffers of British authors too, though not at the same rate. Ian Rankin, the author of the Inspector Rebus crime novels, will bank an advance of around £1.3m from Orion for his next two books The deal is believed to be a record for a Scottish writer. Nick Hornby's latest advance from Penguin runs into seven figures.The biggest deal in literary history is expected shortly when the Walt Disney Corporation agrees to pay a figure believed to be in excess of £300m for the rights to AA Milne's Winnie the Pooh books.But few British novelists can command the tens of millions paid out to America's top thriller writers. "In Britain, only JK Rowling is at that sort of level," says one agent, "she is possibly the biggest brand in the world and can demand any price now. But when she started out she got only £100,000 for the American rights to Harry Potter.

At the time it seemed like a lot, now it looks like a bargain.""Jilly Cooper, Ken Follett and Dick Francis are all global authors," says Martin Nield. Literary agent Carole Blake con- siders Jeffrey Archer and John Le Carre global brands, "although they are not in the same league moneywise" as Michael Crichton or Stephen King.The escalation in enormous advances is partly to do with consolidation among publishers, says Mr Nield. He said: "In Britain we have five major players with big chequebooks all determined to get big name authors." Nicholas Clee, editor of the Bookseller said: "There are simply not many top names to go round the big publishers."At first glance the astronomical payouts seem hard to justify simply in terms of expected book sales. Mary Higgins Clark, for instance, has signed a new $64m five-book deal with Simon & Schuster, and Michael Crichton's next book must sell twice as many copies as his last, Timeline, to justify his advance. But agents and publishers claim star authors are none the less worth their money."When you secure a well-known author there are a lot of knock-on beneficial effects for the publisher. It gives you marketing clout and adds glamour to a list," says Mr Clee. "It means you command a lot of space in bookshops and you get the PR value of having an author at the top of the bestseller list"."At one level these advances are ludicrous," says literary agent Giles Gordon at Curtis Brown.