By Mark Green

Last updated at 14:01, Thursday, 01 December 2011

Comedy, farce, classic drama, a world premiere and a regional premiere make up the summer season of plays at The Theatre By The Lake next year.

The summer season was announced this week, shortly after the launch of the theatre’s sparkling Christmas show, The Firework-Maker’s Daughter.

The new season at the Keswick theatre begins next February.

But before then, the venue will stage a production of Alan Bennett modern-day classic The History Boys.

A smash-hit in the West End when it premiered in 2004, it launched the careers of James Corden and Dominic Cooper and went on to Broadway and was later turned into a movie.

Set in a boys’ grammar school in the north of England in the 1980s, the play is packed with classic Bennett lines and in among the humour asks what is the true purpose of education?

Bennett’s The Lady in the Van and Habeas Corpus were two of the most popular plays staged at Theatre by the Lake since it opened in 1999, this spring production will run from March 24 to April 21.

And next year’s run of plays begins with a studio production of Knives in Hens, the first play by David Harrower whose Blackbird was a big hit in the same space two years ago.

Directed by Theatre by the Lake’s trainee director Jez Pike, Knives In Hens is a tale of suspicion, murder and lust involving a young woman, her ploughman husband and a miller who is an outsider in their community. It runs from February 3-18.

The 2012 summer season offers a mix of comedy, farce and classic, drama.

The Main House series opens with Bedroom Farce, one of the classic works by Alan Ayckbourn, the most performed playwright in the world after Shakespeare. First produced in 1975, it tells of four couples, three bedrooms and one eventful night. A couple suffering huge marital problems manage to inflict them on his parents, some friends having a party and a bed-ridden friend as well.

The main house also stages Dry Rot by John Chapman, one of the great series of 1950s Whitehall farces.

This one features kidnapping, conmen and chaos in a country hotel (with a racehorse hidden in the cellar). Ian Forrest, artistic director at the theatre explains Bedroom Farce is classic Ayckbourn.

“The action moves from one bedroom to another, but it is a comedy, rather than a farce.

“Dry Rot is a traditional farce, set in a country house hotel where an inept gang plan a money-making scam at the nearby horse races. There’s a French jockey who speaks no English, secret panels and bumps in the night. It is really silly and huge fun and it is the ideal family show.”

Brian Rix starred in the original play which ran for three and a half years in the West End and the show does include wearing trousers round the ankles in the great tradition of a West End farce.

The final summer season play in the main house is Great Expectations and marks the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens next year.

Rich in classic Dickens characters, Mr Forrest says it is swift-moving and stylised, though it stays faithful in its retelling.

The first play in the Studio is the classic drama A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen.

Nora, one of the Norwegian master playwright’s great creations, tries to break free from the confines of her marriage.

Next comes Colder Than Here by Laura Wade, the regional premiere of a life-affirming play about a mother trying to plan her own funeral in the face of resistance from her family.

The Studio season ends with Roma and the Flannelettes: A Love Like Yours by Richard Cameron, the world premiere of a Theatre by the Lake commission.

Set in a women’s refuge in Yorkshire, the play is full of authentic voices and Sixties Motown karaoke.

“We have tried to ensure a real choice between the studio and the main house,” said Mr Forrest.

“A Doll’s House is a European classic and Colder Than Here has only been performed once before, when it premiered in London.

“It might sound a bit morbid, but it is full of warmth and gentle humour and it really life affirming.

“Roma and the Flanelettes is another that has plenty of humour, it is a real coup for us to get someone the calibre of Richard to write for us.”

The summer season of plays launches on May 19 and runs until November 10. Booking for the shows open on April 2.

Tickets are now available for Knives and Hens.

For more information, go to www.theatrebythelake.co.uk or call 017687 74411

First published at 11:30, Thursday, 01 December 2011
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk