COMING soon - The Irish Season at Basingstoke's Haymarket theatre.

Two of the three plays scheduled for the 2004 part of the Basingstoke run are now in the pre-production stages of auditions and casting, while the opening play, J M Synge's classic comedy The Playboy of the Western World, is already in production.

This will be coming from the touring Big Telly Theatre Company (pictured), based in Ireland.

At 17 years old, it is the longest-established independent Irish company, concentrating on traditionally-staged Irish classics and, in direct contrast, liberating new works into a very physical and expressionistic staging, relying heavily on multi-media effects.

Director Zoe Seaton told me: "These productions are very accessible for the audience but extremely challenging for the actors.

"Although Playboy is set in a conventional Irish pub, I have avoided giving it a natural and realistic setting.

"The actors I employ have to be what I call 'clown-based' - very physical, very visual and very funny, yet able to cope with all the action-packed drama as well as the slapstick comedy involving the men of the village versus the women of the village.

"There's also a wake, a marriage proposal, a sports day, and a surprise ending when the person you least expect turns up to scupper the hero's plans.

"There are eight in the cast, chosen from a pool of actors in Belfast and Dublin."

The next two plays are directed by John Adams, who was for many years artistic director of the esteemed Birmingham Rep.

Although as a freelance director he now works in regional theatres up and down the country, he enjoys being based in a small village near Birmingham with his wife, actress Amelda Brown.

John is bringing to Basingstoke his production of Brian Friel's The Communication Cord, described by him as "a farce set in a heavily-restored small country house, rather like a Scottish croft".

"It's on the west coast of Ireland, desperately remote, isolated and beautiful, where no one else is likely to appear.

"The central character is a young man, an unlikely academic who is writing a thesis and desperately wants to impress the university chancellor and his daughter, who are visiting the house.

"He makes up all sorts of tales, but his stories and lies get him ever more deeply involved.

"Every time he's caught out he has to make up another story. He's forever trying to invent ways out of his current situation."

Then comes the Christmas treat - the Oscar Wilde classic The Canterville Ghost.

John said: "Although it's supposed to be a Victorian Christmas, I have moved it forward to the late '20s, with music of that genre composed by Shaun Prendergast and staged in the style of those wonderful film musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

"It's a romantic comedy, it's also a thriller and it's a bit scary at times, with jokes and gags and lots of ghostly surprises. Set designer Elroy Ashmore has devised some very spooky goings-on.

"I'm now auditioning to get together a team of actor-musicians, able to act both comedy and drama and play musical instruments.

"I know this sort of multi-talented cast has proved popular in previous Haymarket productions."

The Irish Season at Basingstoke's Haymarket Theatre begins on September 22 with The Playboy of the Western World by J M Synge, followed by Brian Friel's The Communication Cord, which opens on October 21.

For Christmas, the Oscar Wilde comedy thriller The Canterville Ghost will open on December 8.

And make a note of the Haymarket's new box office phone number - 0870 770 1088.