WITH Sir Ian McKellan gracing Frinton’s McGrigor Hall earlier this year, preparations are well in hand for this year’s Summer Season.

It all starts on July 9 with Willy Russell’s hilarious One For the Road.

That will be followed by Frederick Knott’s disturbing thriller Wait Until Dark, and then Frinton’s tribute to the late great American playwright, Neil Simon with a production of his Brighton Beach Memoirs.

July 30 will see something a little different with Shakespeare Reduced, all 38 plays in 90 minutes performed by three actors, and then into August it’s Black Chiffon by Lesley Storm and the wonderful Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, a recent huge hit in the West End.

Rounding off the season at the hall from August 20 will be Stepping Out by Richard Harris, while from August 9 to 18 in the Greensward Tent, it will be Me and My Girl, which follows on from last year’s inaugural musical show Fiddler on the Roof.

The summer season WILL also include Arabella Weir in Does my Mother Loom Big in This on Sunday, July 28.

The best selling author and star of the The Fast Show promises to be devastatingly funny, excruciatingly honest and definitely embarrassing in her mother of all confessional shows.

One for the Road, by Willy Russell, runs from July 9 to July 13.

It sees Dennis, about to turn 35, desperately trying to escape from a middle-class existence he never imagined for himself.

He also wants to escape a housing estate he hates for its uniform blandness and escape his neighbours.

At the enforced birthday celebration he never wanted – with presents and guests he despises – he begins to crack and packs a rucksack.

However, his attempts to flee are somewhat hampered by his bumbling parents, a phantom gnome-decapitating vandal and the everlasting love for his vinyl collection.

Filled with Willy Russell’s (Blood Brothers, Shirley Valentine) wonderful one-liners and perceptive characters this play is full of laughs and insight in equal measure.

It stars Patrick Knowles, Verity Kirk, Paul Joseph and Tanya Loretta Dee and is directed by Vivienne Garnett.

For more information, visit frintonsummertheatre.org