CALLUM O'Connell was determined to win his Chess match.

"I haven't stopped bugging Shipton Theatre Company about doing this show for two years," says 24-year-old Callum, whose wish to direct the musical has come to fruition.

In the 20th anniversary year of the political musical by Tim Rice and Abba's Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, Callum makes his directorial debut at the helm of Shipton's production of Chess at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, next week.

This show, should you need a quick refresher course, sets two chess world champions, one American, the other Russian, on a collision course at the height of the Cold War in 1980.

Callum was struck first by the music. "I heard this song, Where I Want To Be, on one of those cheapo compilations, and I kept wondering where it was from, and the answer was Chess, so I got the original cast recording, and listened to it constantly," he recalls. "When you do that, you begin to build pictures in your head of what it should be like, and I had my own vision of the show as I hadn't ever seen it."

He was convinced Chess would suit the burgeoning Shipton company. "My first concern was that Shipton should do it because we have such a talented company, which I was certain could do a show that good. I made a few subtle hints that I should direct it as my first show...and thankfully the committee was happy with that," says Callum, who has been a regular in the Shipton cast since The Card in 2001.

"I felt that I'd done enough shows to know how the process works as far as directing goes, and I had a clear image of what I wanted Chess to look like and what characteristics I wanted to bring out."

Not that he has been a dictator in rehearsals. "From the start it's a team vision: there's certainly room to add to my original vision and that's what we've done," says Callum, whose production makes poetic use of a chess board's black and white motif.

"The show starts with many colours but by the end the cast is in black and white to really get across the message that life is a game of chess where people use others as pawns."

Chess, Shipton Theatre Company, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, March 9 to 12, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 0870 770 5741 or 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:09 Friday, March 04, 2005