THE Lakes Season at York Theatre Royal stretches beyond this week's Sense And Sensibility to accommodate two more shows in the main house and one in the Studio next week.

Next to cross the Pennines from the summer repertory season at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick will be Alan Bennett's Single Spies, directed by Tom Littler, on November 13 at 7.30pm and November 14 at 2pm and 7.30pm. This forms the second Bennett play of the Theatre Royal season, after The Habit Of Art with Matthew Kelly in late-summer, as the Leeds playwright explores one of Britain’s most fascinating stories of espionage: namely Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, their secret identities, hidden motivations and a rather unexpected interrogation by HM The Queen.

Directed by Philip Wilson, Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, on November 16 at 7.30pm and November 17 at 2.30pm and 7.30pm, is a play drawn from the works of P G Wodehouse by the Goodale Brothers, wherein aristocratic man about town Bertie Wooster and his dutiful valet Jeeves venture to a country house for the weekend. When Wooster is called on to play matchmaker, the ever-dependable Jeeves is on hand to step in and save Bertie’s bacon, as three actors play a multitude of characters in this inventive and totally bonkers send-up of Wodehouse’s iconic characters.

Meanwhile, The Studio will play host to Rona Munro's sharply funny and moving Bold Girls on November 13 at 7.45pm and November 14 at 2pm and 7.45pm. The setting is 1991 West Belfast during The Troubles, when, with their husbands locked up or killed, Marie, Cassie and Nora are just trying to get on with their lives. Revelations ensue, however, when a mysterious young woman turns up and disrupts their girls’ night out.

Director Bobby Brook says: "This wonderfully passionate play offers us a slice of what life was like for women during The Troubles. And that slice of life is beautiful, bossy, laugh-out-loud funny, wild and heartbreaking all at the same time. For me, most importantly, it’s about four individual, strong, hopeful and bold women."

A second show planned for the Studio on November 16 and 17, Simon Longman's Rails, has been cancelled, derailed by technical matters. The company going ahead with the rest of the season is Thomas Richardson, Theo Fraser Steele, James Duke, Christine Entwisle, Toby Vaughan, Lydea Perkins, Oliver Mott, Alice Imelda, Sarah Kempton and Karen Ascoe.

Tom Bird, York Theatre Royal’s executive director, says: "The Lakes Season is an exciting part of our autumn/winter season that gives our audience the opportunity to see four top-class productions from another wonderful north of England producing house. Earlier this year, the co-production with Theatre by the Lake of Hymn To Love, starring Elizabeth Mansfield, proved an outstanding success with our audiences and the remounting of Theatre by the Lake's The Secret Garden proved a big hit at York Theatre Royal this summer."

Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Charles Hutchinson