AS THE cheering and festive fun fades after the Firebird Christmas spectacular, all eyes at The Dukes are now firmly focused on the Lancaster theatre's new spring season.

The first touch of drama is Skylight, written by David Hare, one of the most successful writers in the West End and on Broadway.

The play is about making sense out of contemporary life and starts on February 16.

It is based on people with ideas, with its main characters struggling to balance the personal with the political.

The second Dukes offering comes in March.

A Les Smith adaptation of Daniel Defoe's novel, Moll Flanders, a heroine who became one of Britain's most famous scarlet women.

Artistic director Ian Hastings said he commissioned the dramatisation for the Bristol Old Vic in 1995 and has been bursting to direct it again ever since: "It's a story told with passion.

It has Moll's hot blood coursing through its veins without it ever being gratuitous.

"A live, lusty show that goes up and down on the emotional scale without ever being a romp.

Often cheeky never cheap."

In between the two Dukes productions, the theatre will play host to several touring shows, including a return visit of the M6 Theatre Company with Mary Cooper's Forever, on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 16/17, and Compact Theatre's Three Steps to Heaven on Saturday, January 13.

Dukes marketing officer Bridget Halldearn says she's looking forward to an exciting 2001: "The Dukes will continue going from strength to strength in both the theatre, and the cinema, which is getting a new state-of-the-art digital sound system."

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