BEETHAM'S Heron Theatre has announced an autumn programme with more music events alongside a wide range of professional theatre and film.

The highly regarded Lakeland theatre - which is run by entirely by volunteers - aims to widen its appeal with more theatre for a family audience, programmes of classical and acoustic music and great films for movie buffs.

Actor Liz Grand, from the Worcester Repertory Theatre, opens the Heron's theatre programme tomorrow (Friday, September 19, 7.30pm) with the Second Best Bed, a one woman show about Mrs William Shakespeare, Anne Hathaway, focusing on the contents of the great Bard’s will and the life that came before it.

Another stage legend, Vesta Tilley, is brought to life at the Heron on Friday, October 17 (7.30pm), when Claire Worboys performs Vesta – the story of the music hall superstar famed for her impersonation of male characters including Burlington Bertie.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival comedy favourites The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre provide light relief with their new show Socks in Space and Other Adventures on October 10 (7.30pm). Later, on October 30/31 and November 1, The Company, The Heron's associate theatre group, presents Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, set in the bog-lands of western Ireland.

The theatre programme concludes with a seasonally spooky production of Dicken's A Christmas Carol presented by Folksy Theatre on December 6.

Guitarist Gordon Giltrap got the Heron season off to a flying start with a performance on September 13 that launched a series of monthly Saturday evening concerts at the theatre.

On October 4, the Sydney-based Janet Seidel Trio perform on a theme prompted by the title track of their new CD Far Away Places, a 1940s hit song evoking the yearning to be whisked away to another time and space while on November 15, The Wonderful Sound of The Cinema Organ visit with their multimedia music show.

And two of the region’s most popular musicians, Wendy Nicholas and Barry Sharkey, appear on Sunday, November 30 (2.30pm), with ‘four hands’ piano duets, including pieces by Mozart, Grieg, Beethoven, Strauss and Scott Joplin.

Saving Mr Banks kicks off the Heron cinema programme on September 26, which continues each month with screenings of The Selfish Giant (October 24), Like Father Like Son (November 7) and on December 12, The Invisible Woman.

Box office 015395-64283.