THEATRE by the Lake has a fantastic mix of the classic, the contemporary, the uproarious and the challenging in its 2012 programme.

The Keswick theatre will stage eight plays, two in the spring, the other six in its hugely successful summer season that runs from May until November.

Knives in Hens, the astonishing first play by David Harrower whose Blackbird was a big hit at Theatre by the Lake two years ago, runs in the Studio from February 3-18.

Directed by theatre’s trainee director Jez Pike, the play is a haunting tale of superstition, murder and desire told in rich poetic language. It has been a hit all over the world and translated into more than 20 languages.

The next spring production will be Alan Bennett,’s acclaimed The History Boys, set in a boys’ grammar school in the north of England in the 1980s. Directed by Ian Forrest, its runs from March 24 until April 21.

The main season is packed with comedy, farce, drama and mystery and opens with Bedroom Farce, one of the classic works by Alan Ayckbourn.

Following on will be Dry Rot by John Chapman, one of the great series of 1950s Whitehall farces, plus the Dickens’ masterpiece Great Expectations.

Running in the Studio will be A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen in an adaptation by Bryony Lavery; Colder Than Here by Laura Wade, the regional premiere of a life-affirming play about a mother trying to plan her own funeral in the face of resistance from her family, and Roma and the Flannelettes: A Love Like Yours by Richard Cameron, which is a Theatre by the Lake commission. Set in a women’s refuge in Yorkshire, the play is full of dark humour and 1960s Motown karaoke.

Meanwhile, the theatre’s yuletide treat The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, continues until January 7.

Box office on 017687-74411.