THE weather may disagree but the calendar tells us that summer is almost here.

And rehearsals are already under way for Neville's Island and Beautiful Thing, two of York Theatre Royal's summer season productions.

Neville's Island is a Tim Firth comedy about four middle managers called Neville, Gordon, Angus and Roy, who are stranded on a team-building exercise in the Lake District. Firth has also written comedies for television - Once Upon A Time In The North and Preston Front, as well as the hit West End Musical Our House, with music by Madness.

A writer since the age of 18, Firth's first professional commissions were Heartlands, directed by American Beauty director Sam Mendes, and A Man Of Letters for the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. His first feature film is the eagerly-anticipated Calendar Girls, which stars Helen Mirren and Julie Walters as the WI women who famously stripped for a charity calendar.

Neville's Island features John Paul Connolly as Neville, Eamonn Fleming as Angus, Colin Tarrant as Gordon and Robert Pickavance as Roy, and is directed by Damien Cruden, the theatre's artistic director, whose most recent production was Abandonment.

Meanwhile in The Studio, the Theatre Royal joins forces with the Pilot Theatre Company to present Beautiful Thing, an urban fairy tale by Jonathan Harvey, winner of the 1987 Girobank Young Writer of the Year Award for his play The Cherry Blossom at the Liverpool Playhouse. Harvey also wrote the TV comedy Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.

Beautiful Thing is a play about coming of age, centring on teenagers Jamie, Ste and Leah, who are kicking their heels on an estate during a hot summer. When Ste's father lashes out he finds solace with Jamie's family, receiving the motherly love he has never known and forming a friendship which changes his life.

Marcus Romer directs, with Chad Gomez as Ste, Rachid Sabitri as Jamie, Rhea Bailey as Leah, Andrina Carroll as Sandra and Marcello Walton as Tony.

Neville's Island runs at York Theatre Royal from June 6 to 28. Beautiful Thing runs from June 5 to 28. Tickets: 01904 623568.

Updated: 10:06 Friday, May 23, 2003