nMASKERS theatre Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is now due to get under way tomorrow night after rain stopped play at Hamptworth Lodge, Landford for the past three nights.

Shakespeare’s enchanting tale of mischievous fairies and starcrossed lovers will now see the cast using stylised umbrellas and wellies.

Torrential rain had flooded the car park and some of the grounds of the venue. But organisers say the Archery Lawn is well drained and promise a highly entertaining evening with many surprises – 1930s music, some dance, fairy trickery and a stunning garden to enjoy.

Anyone holding tickets for the cancelled performances can transfer them by calling Ticketsouth on 023 8071 1818.

DEBUT Youth Theatre (DYT) celebrate 25 years by reprising their very first show – Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado – at Hanger Farm Arts Centre.

Playing only his second lead role, Conor Chambers stars as the wand’ring minstrel, Nanki-Poo. His opposite number, Ellen Sly, playing Yum-Yum, is now performing with DYT for the last time as she heads off to university.

The group was launched in 1987 as an offshoot junior section to Southampton Operatic Society.

Performers would love former members to join them for the show, which runs from Thursday to Saturday. Box office: 023 8066 7683.

nLEESTEN verrry carefully, I shall say zis only once! ‘Allo ‘Allo comes to the New Forest when Lyndhurst Drama and Musical Society present this fun-filled play based on the wellloved 80s sitcom. This production is directed by Jenny Green. Neville Green takes to the stage as Rene, the hapless café owner and ladies man, alongside Stephen Ferder as the British officer Crabtree and David Foote as the unlovable, humourless yet hilarious Herr Flick.

The comedy is at The Vernon Theatre in Lyndhurst from Wednesday to Saturday. Tickets: 023 8028 3783.

nIN a new venture, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard will present a unique opportunity to enjoy a night ‘out’ at the theatre in the surroundings of the world-famous HMS Victory.

Starting the ‘Dockyard At Dusk’ season, is the Royal Navy Theatre Association (RNTA) who are planning their most ambitious project yet by performing an outdoor production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing from Wednesday to Saturday.

Tickets are available from historicdockyard.co.uk nHAROLD Pinter and Edward Albee, two of the most diverse playwrights of our time, come together for ten nights.

To start off the night, there will be Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter – a black comedy about two assassins, one obviously more experienced than the other, trapped in one room waiting for their next assignment.

After the interval, with a miraculous set change, Albee’s Zoo Story will take to the stage. Zoo Story is an interesting and eye-opening conversation between two men in Central Park, Peter – a business man with a wife, two children and living in a nice area of New York, and Jerry – a man with strong determination to find out everything he can about Peter and tell Peter all that has happened to him at the Zoo and what happens in the Roominghouse he lives in.

The double bill runs until Saturday July 21 at St Margarets Arts in Titchfield.

For tickets visit titchfieldfestivaltheatre.com or call 01329 556156.

WHAT happens when you and your wife invite your boss and his wife to dinner... and they arrive 24 hours early? Well, you panic, obviously. But after that?

French writer Yasmina Reza presents three possible answers in LIFE x 3, to be staged by Bench Theatre at Havant. But they are overlapping rather than totally different answers.

Performances are at the Spring Arts Centre from Thursday to Saturday and July 24 to 28.

Call 023 9247 2700 or visit thespring.co.uk nTWENTY two years after RAODS first performed it, they return to Habeas Corpus – the entertaining, bawdy picture postcard comedy that combines the fun of a classic farce with Bennett’s unmistakably dry Northern wit. It’s a balmy summer afternoon, and a variety of upper middle-class residents are certainly feeling the heat. The sex-mad Dr Arthur Wicksteed is caught in a compromising position with a gorgeous young patient.

His wife, Muriel craves the reawakening of her passion – with anyone from a travelling salesman to her husband’s bitter rival. While Arthur’s sister, Connie is obsessed with developing her flat chest and makes a plan to help nature along... and there are plenty of offers to give her a helping hand!

Habeas Corpus runs from Tuesday to Saturday. Tickets are available online from plazatheatre.com or 01794 512987.