WATFORD will make a dramatic claim to fame nationwide this spring and summer.

No less than five Palace Theatre productions are set to tour theatres all over the country with the award-winning Elton John's Glasses, which is also based on Watford, scheduled to open in the West End, on June 10.

David Farr's hit comedy will star Watford-born actor Brian Conley as a no-hope Hornets fan and the tour kicks off with just ten performances at the Palace Theatre, starting April 16.

Artistic director Giles Croft, who commissioned the show, had another personal success story to tell when he launched the Palace Theatre spring and summer season this week.

His own stage adaptation of the British film classic, Kind Hearts & Coronets, which premiered at the Palace a year ago, is going on tour with Robert Powell and Colin Baker topping the bill and Giles himself directing for producers, Charles Vance.

News reached the theatre on Monday that last April's Palace production of Frankie and Tommy, based on Tommy Cooper's early career, is now also set for a tour, starting in Brighton late April, under a new title, Just Like That.

Arnold Wesker's compelling 1950's family drama, Roots, a co-production with Oxford Stage Company, will also tour following its Palace premiere, from March 13 to April 4, and Giles is confident that Ben Elton's outrageous comedy, Gasping, will hit the trail after a May premiere in Watford.

Both Arnold Wesker and Ben Elton will be coming to Watford, Arnold Wesker to give a reading of a new play, Whatever Happened to Betty Lemon, and to answer questions during An Audience With Arnold Wesker on Thursday, April 2.

Ben Elton has agreed to update Gasping, his play based on the idea of privatising air.

The comedy was written under the influence of the Conservative government's privatisation drive back in 1990.

"We agreed to do it provided Ben rewrote it to fit in with new Labour privatisation policies. A lot of targets have shifted and he is really enthusiastic, which is fantastic," enthused Giles, who likes to have writers in the building.

"Writers are central to the British tradition," he said.

His central thought for the spring and summer season was "to go for really bright".

The theme is left in abeyance at the start, when Black Theatre Co-operative and Nottingham Playhouse present the stage version of Ray Shell's 1993 cult novel, Iced, which tells the story of one man's addiction to crack cocaine.

Giles took his Watford team to Nottingham to see the show and commented: "It is like Trainspotting before Trainspotting, about the dark heart of addiction. It is strong and doesn't glamorise drugs and addiction.

"It is right, I think, to have one dark piece in an otherwise bright spring and summer season. All young people should see it."

Young and old are catered for in the choice of tours visiting the Palace for one-off events of music, dance and children's shows.

They include Dublin Worldwide Dance Productions' Spirit of the Dance - as close as you will get to Riverdance in Watford with the theatre originally concerned that the limited Palace stage might not be big enough to accommodate the show.

No such worries for the musical comedy team, Instant Sunshine, or Gregori Schechter's Klezmer Festival Band, who will play traditional Jewish folk and party music. For children, there is the Mr. Men and Little Miss and Giles vowed he will join the young audience for the All Electric Puppet Theatre's The Secret of Ghost Castle.

For the final show of the season, Fiona Laird returns to Watford to direct the satirical comedy, Schippel, The Plumber. Fiona, who directed Happy Families, Black Comedy and Frogs (RNT tour) at the Palace, is currently co-directing Peter Pan at the Royal National Theatre.

The season closes earlier than usual, on June 27.

The artistic director of Watford, the football town, recognises that beyond that date, the theatre would be up against competition from a seriously popular show - the World Cup.

The last play in the current season, Frederick Knott's nail-biting thriller, Wait Until Dark, which Giles directs, opens for a three-week run on Friday, January 30.

(New season brochure and bookings are available from Monday, January 26. Box office: 01923 225671)

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.