THE preliminary round of the All England Theatre Festival will once again take place in Grange this month.

Audiences can see five performances at the Victoria Hall on Saturday March 25, with adjudicator Bev Clark in the chair to decide which Cumbrian company progresses to the next stage.

Grange-based Cosgood Players will be performing Ken Smyth's Who Do You Think You Are?, with the Cumbria Amateur Theatre Society performing Blood On Canvas, by Richard James; Gosforth Amateur Dramatic Society taking on Stephen Bean's A Little Box Of Oblivion, and two performances from Cockermouth Amateur Dramatic Society - Anton Chekhov's The Proposal, and David Greig's Being Norwegian.

Bev Clark trained at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and is a well-known writer and director. She was a youth theatre director at the Old Vic Theatre, and more recently formed the Hand in Hand Theatre Company - a community driven arts organisation that presents work for all ages.

The winners of the preliminary round at Victoria Hall will go through to the semi-final, which will take place at Saltburn Community Centre, in Yorkshire, over the weekend of May 6 and 7.

At the event in Grange, which gets under way at 3pm, there will be coffee and refreshments between each play.

In the 15-minute gap between performances, the back stage team sets the stage, while the adjudicator frantically writes up their critique and tots up the points earned.

Doors open for the afternoon session at 2.30pm with curtain up half an hour later. The first-half comes to a close at 6pm, offering a well-earned hour-long break for participants.

The doors will be reopened at 6.30pm for a 7pm curtain up on the evening session, with the final adjudication rounding out the night.

There will be tickets available on the day for the individual afternoon and evening sessions, though there are advance tickets available to cover both.