WHY was it a body called the York Minster Mystery Plays Board which told us there won't be any York Mystery Plays next year? Does this board need to exist?

The year 2000 Mystery Plays in the Minster were wonderful, but I thought that at the time it was made clear that this was something special for the millennium, and that the Plays were not to take place regularly in the Minster. Every four years would clearly be much too disruptive to the normal activities of the Minster.

Obviously the Mystery Plays were originally intended to be performed on waggons, and it is good to keep this tradition alive. However, for present-day audiences (and also, I imagine, for the actors), there is just no comparison between the waggon plays and the cycle performed as a continuous whole. We need a body committed to ensuring that the continuous cycle is performed, somewhere, every four years - something similar to Chester Mystery Plays Ltd, as described in the Evening Press on June 21.

My preferred venue would be back in the Museum Gardens, how can anything beat that setting? If that is really not possible, then perhaps the University Central Hall or the Barbican, as other readers have suggested. And perhaps (but not necessarily) the Minster could be used every 20 years - that would fit with a four-year pattern.

Margaret Birch,

Fenwick's Lane, Fulford.

Updated: 10:56 Tuesday, July 01, 2003