Stephen Davies

It is now just over a month until the new stage play version of Helen Forrester's hit musical Twopence To Cross The Mersey embarks on a six-week tour of four Merseyside theatres.

The full cast has been announced for the new stage play of Helen Forrester's Twopence To Cross The Mersey, which tours four Merseyside theatres in the Spring.

Highly controversial when it opened in 1958 and now considered a classic, The Birthday Party is one of Pinter's least subtle plays. Set in a seaside boarding house, it is part black comedy and part whodunit, with the central action literally happening in the dark. Like all great literature, it asks timeless questions: How can we be sure that anyone is who he says he is? Is it ever possible to pin down the truth of the past? And can we ever escape our deepest fears?

Highly controversial when it opened in 1958 and now considered a classic, The Birthday Party is one of Pinter's least subtle plays. Set in a seaside boarding house, it is part black comedy and part whodunit, with the central action literally happening in the dark. Like all great literature, it asks timeless questions: How can we be sure that anyone is who he says he is? Is it ever possible to pin down the truth of the past? And can we ever escape our deepest fears?

For the third summer in a row Theatre 40 is turning back time to present a delightfully eerie murder mystery thriller: first, it was Agatha Christie's Black Coffee, then last summer The Spider's Web, and now, from the early twenties, Mary Roberts Rinehart's and Avery Hopwood's The Bat. The current production is not quite as tightly packaged as the previous two, but, despite the play's lengthy exposition and a somewhat slow delivery, it does have guest artist Veronica Cartwright on board, an opulent set and costumes...and, with its thunder and lightning blackouts and creepy images popping up outside the window and in the corridor, it certainly is a whole lot of fun to experience.