Presumably he's trying to degrade himself, but unfortunately one of the exotic dancers is in love with him. It's a trademark of the tough guys' weepie, incidentally, that it takes emotion seriously, but only among people who fight against it, ie men. Women get paradoxically short shrift, because they're meant to be good at that stuff. Freddy (Jack Nicholson) lost his daughter Emily six years ago. You need time to grieve, to absorb your losses, before Sean Penn starts his all-out assault on your tear ducts.

The Crossing Guard is a tough guy's weepie - a genre that can't be graded, as women's weepies can, by the number of tissues required, since tough guys wipe their eyes on their coat sleeves. If Sean Penn gets his way with you, your sleeves will be wet to the elbows. If your gerbil died today, or if your favourite goldfish is lying ominously still at the bottom of the tank, do not attempt to see The Crossing Guard, Sean Penn's second film as writer-director. It is due to tour Nottingham, Newcastle and Glasgow later this year and is also booked to appear at the National Theatre in London.. Tyler has attempted to identify the attraction of her character for men "She's not this big sex symbol at all," she says. "It's more her youth that excites them, and the change." But change itself is not always popular. How many saucy films about octogenarians are there? Or, for that matter, the menopause - Confessions of a Hysterectomist or Sweaty Brigitte, anyone? The obvious criticism of male directors who duck and dive around the subject of hymens is that they're frightened of grown women, turned on by what females don't know.This is not to condemn any director who explores the subject of green teen virginity, for it doesn't have to be lush and uncomplicated.

During the Sixties, for example, influenced by feminism and loaded with angst, cinema seemed constantly to be pointing out the misery and artificiality of the great divide between virgin and non-virgin, Kazan's Splendor in the Grass and Bergman's The Virgin Spring being particularly fine examples. Similarly, Roman Polanski could only detect the foul stink of the "ripening state". Tourist information offices in the city had been informed and credit card bookings would be automatically refunded.The Ex-Machina Company was said to be devastated after having worked furiously to prepare the show for Edinburgh. The Bank of Scotland, which sponsored the show, had been "very supportive".Mr McMaster said his staff would tell as many people as possible that the show would not be running.

It depended on four motors to pick up the pieces, but one didn't respond."Despite technicians working round the clock, it proved impossible to mend, and the only available replacement part was in Canada. Mr Lepage was, he admitted, extremely embarrassed and conceded that such heavy reliance on technology may have been risky.Everything had gone smoothly during rehearsals and in the six months that the show, by the Ex-Machina Company of Canada, had been touring abroad.It is the first time in living memory that the festival has lost such a high-profile show in such a way, and the cost to it is likely to be close to pounds 100,000, but its director, Brian McMaster, said that the festival had an insurance policy to cover such emergencies. Last year 30.8 per cent of classical-album sales were budget price, 19.7 per cent were mid-price and 49.5 per cent were full price. In 1990 budget- price albums accounted for only 20 per cent of the market.. One of the most prestigious productions at this year's Edinburgh festival has been cancelled at the last minute, leaving thousands of ticket-holders disappointed.

Yesterday Robert Lepage, the renowned actor and director, admitted that his reinterpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet would not see one performance. Elsinore, starring Mr Lepage himself, was to be the theatrical showpiece of the festival's first week, but the complicated technical equipment on which it relied broke down as it was due to open on Monday.Mr Lepage said the problem had proved impossible to fix and that the show, due to run for five nights, had been cancelled.The news will be a blow to the 3,000 people who had bought tickets costing between pounds 6 and pounds 20 to see what was described as "a remarkable synthesis of dazzling theatre technology and cinematic convention".Mr Lepage explained at a press conference: "There was a huge piece of machinery that revolved and picked up huge pieces of sets. Only 600,000 were traditional 7in vinyl "45"s, a drop of 0.5 per cent.The cash generated from sales of singles rose by 11 per cent compared to the summer of 1995, with customers paying pounds 28.5m in only three months. Over the same three months, 40 million albums were sold.The main artists behind the singles bonanza were The Fugees, with their version of the soul classic Killing Me Softly, Gina G, Mark Morrison, Baddiel/Skinner/Lightning Seeds, with the Euro 96 anthem, and George Michael.The other notable aspect of the figures released by the BPI is the way budget-price classical albums are increasing their share of the market. About 4.5 million were cassette singles, a drop of 4.6 per cent drop from the previous year and 2 million were 12in vinyl singles, a drop of 2 per cent. The sale of 53 million marked a drop of 2.6 million on the previous year.But the figures for this summer, which are not included in the handbook, show the singles market is continuing to grow. Over 18 million were bought between April and June this year, almost 6 per cent more than in the same quarter the previous year, and 4 million more than in the equivalent quarter of 1993.Of the 18 million, 11 million were CD singles, a 7 per cent increase in this format from the previous year. It is true, however, that the number of singles released now is far greater than was the case 30 years ago, so the feat of attaining the top position could hardly be described as easy."The latest BPI statistical handbook, out today, shows that singles sales were particularly strong in 1995, when more than 70 million were sold for the first time in 10 years.The album market was 196 million Cassette albums were the only casualty.