The Heron Theatre is off to a flying start with visiting professional companies, choirs, instrumental concerts, lectures and recitals packed into its most ambitious and extensive season yet.

Tonight (Friday, 7.30pm) and tomorrow sees the curtain rise on a new series of events for the Beetham theatre opening with Summoned by Bells, by the late John Betjeman.

It tells the story of the former Poet Laureate's youth, performed by Tim Heath, highlighting his formative years with all the dramas of family life, the excitement of holidays, public school and his Oxford days.

The tempestuous life of Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, Edna St Vincent Millay, known as 'the voice of flaming youth', is in the spotlight on Friday, September 27 (7.30pm).

Wild as the White Waves is a one-woman show, written and performed by Lancaster-based performer Sue McCormick.

Billed as funny, moving and ultimately inspiring.

On October 18 (7.30pm), Jim Trotman presents East Of Berlin, a slide presentation taking the audience on a historic train journey across the old frontiers of Poland and Russia.

And Andy Booth's acclaimed Cumbrian theatre outfit Quondam stages Julia Darling's play Doughnuts Like Fanny's on Friday, October 25 (7.30pm), looking at the extraordinary life and times of television's first celebrity chef, Fanny Craddock.

November opens with Kemp's Jig - an Elizabethan roadshow seen at the National, RSC and on TV.

And completing the 2002 part of the programme are the talented young musicians and singers of Windermere St Anne's School performing songs and instrumentals conducted by musical director Janet McCallum.

Raconteur, photographer and painter Stephen Greenwood gets the New Year off to a fascinating start on Friday, January 10 (7.30pm) with tales of monasteries and Rococo churches of Bavaria in From the Steps of Valhalla.

Among the packed list of Heron events for 2003 are performances by The Cefiro Clarinet Quartet from the Royal Northern College of Music (May 9) and Not Quite Opera (March 28).

In addition, the main programme is interspersed with a separate series for members.

From small beginnings in 1947, the South Westmorland Stage and Screen Society theatre has flourished over the years.

With the help of lottery grants, the former Beetham Free Grammar School building has been transformed from an early 19th century typically Westmorland two-room school into a first class 80-seat, raked auditorium with major investment going into the lights and sound system.

The latest project is an appeal to raise £20,000 to extend the theatre foyer.

The volunteers who run SWSSS are proud of their achievements.

And artistic director Jeanette Barnes tells me that the society is keen to put young musicians and actors on the stage.

The Heron box office is open 10am-2pm Tuesdays and Fridays on 015395-64283.

For details of the appeal contact John Barnes via the box office.