RADIO TIMES

FIFTEEN actors, singers, musicians and dancers bring crackling comedy to Theatre Royal Winchester next week with Radio Times.

The production from the acclaimed Tony award-winning Watermill Theatre is headlined by stars Gary Wilmott (Chicago, Me and My Girl) and Sara Crowe (Private Lives, Four Weddings and a Funeral) and features uplifting vocal harmonies, spectacular tapdancing and plenty of quick-fire gags.

Set in a BBC radio recording studio, the popular show Variety Bandwagon is being transmitted live to blitz-torn Britain, keeping the nation’s spirits alive with optimistic and much-loved songs (Who’s Been Polishing the Sun, Love Makes the World Go Round, Run Rabbit Run), side-splitting comedy routines and plenty of lighthearted romance.

The show’s cast are about to broadcast live to America for the first time, but as the clock ticks away, the radio ventriloquist has not turned up and there is no sign of the star of the show, Sammy Shaw (Wilmot).

With seconds to spare he arrives with Gary Strong, a Hollywood movie idol, in tow.

The broadcast seems assured but Olive James (Crowe), Sammy’s girlfriend, knows Gary of old and starts to question her commitment...

u Radio Times runs from Monday to Saturday, December 8.

BUTTERCUP BUTTERCUP is a fat cow from Lancashire. She’s lovely. She’s really looking forward to meeting you all. She can’t wait to tell you, among other things, how she won Masterchef by feeding her stillborn baby to a fish and a potato. And what happened when she was made the star of her own TV show The Only Way is Lancashire.

Buttercup is the latest creation from writer/performer To m Wainwright, whose last show Pedestrian was an Edinburgh Fringe 2010 smash.

She’s at The Nuffield Studio from Monday to Wednesday.

UP DOWN BOY

INSPIRED by the extraordinary true life story of a boy with Down’s Syndrome, actor Nathan Bessell comes to Forest Arts in New Milton tomorrow night to play Matty.

The central character in Up Down Boy, he poignantly draws on his own experience of Down’s.

You’ve got to stop living on Planet Matty. You’re going away.You’re going to have to live in the real world. Matty is off to college in an hour – and he’s left it to Mum to pack his suitcase. She won’t miss the slamming doors, the queue for the bathroom and the phone bills. But Matty is no ordinary teenager.Will his Mum cope without him? Will he cope with the challenges that lie ahead? And how will they fit the life-size model of Buffy the Vampire Slayer into the back of the car?