WHISTLE Down The Wind, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman's West End musical, will play York for the first time next month.

Bill Kenwright's touring production is booked in for May 10 to 15 in the only week-long run of the Grand Opera House spring and summer season. Performances will start at 7.30pm, complemented by Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm, and tickets cost £10.50 to £23.50 on 0870 606 3595.

Based on Bryan Forbes's 1961 film starring Hayley Mills, Whistle Down The Wind is an uplifting tale of the transforming power of love, set in America's Deep South, where a 15-year-old girl discovers a mysterious man hiding out in a barn.

When she asks him his identity, the first words he utters are "Jesus Christ", and it is as if all her prayers have been answered. The girl and the town's other children vow to protect the stranger from the world that waits outside; meanwhile the townspeople are determined to catch a fugitive.

Whistle Down The Wind's new staging combines epic storytelling with intimate emotion as the innocence of children collides with the cynicism of the adult world, in a Kenwright production with choreography by Henry Metcalfe, design by Paul Farnsworth, musical direction by David Steadman and lighting by Nick Richings.

The musical score includes The Vaults Of Heaven, Whistle Down The Wind and No Matter What, a song made in boy-band heaven for Boyzone, who took it to number one in August 1998.

Glen Carter will reprise his West End lead role of The Man, while Richard Swerrun will play Boone on his return to the Grand Opera House, where he acquired a female fan club for his star turns as Joseph in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Swerrun, who has donned Joseph's loincloth and coat 2,500 times, last appeared at the Opera House in his concert show The Singer, The Band, The Show in October 2002, when he interpreted the music of Lloyd Webber, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Shirley Bassey.

Updated: 08:58 Friday, April 23, 2004