Video Reviews : ****Excellent***Good**Fair*Poor : Musical Dance

**** “Follies in Concert”

Fries. $39.95.

Any Sondheim fan who enjoyed this program when it aired on PBS stations recently will want to have this videocassette for the permanent collection. Not only is it an enthralling look at high-powered artists at work, paying painstaking attention to the quality of their contributions, but the recording itself, with its Jonathan Tunick orchestrations, is close to definitive. What’s captured here is a blow-by-blow account of a talented group of people experiencing the pangs of creative birth, at the same time that the camera catches touching and spontaneous backstage camaraderie. Watching Licia Albanese rubbing shoulders with Carol Burnett, or Elaine Stritch cracking up her offstage colleagues with a joke, is as memorable as the touching sight of George Hearn protectively embracing Barbara Cook. This is television- verite at its best.