PILOT Theatre, the company with the Castleford address and no permanent rehearsal space, is enjoying the kind of special relationship with York Theatre Royal patented by the leaders of the UK and USA.

In the wake of Lord Of The Flies and Rumble Fish, a third Pilot show will open at the Theatre Royal next week: Ad de Bont's Mirad - A Boy From Bosnia, this time as the opening production in The Studio's new season. A fourth show, a hi-tech version of Road newly re-written by Jim Cartwright will follow in the main house in September, as Pilot's residence becomes ever more fruitful and regular.

More on Pilot's future plans in York and beyond will follow in Friday Night Fever next week. First, Mirad - A Boy From Bosnia, a play first staged in Holland and then performed at the Royal National Theatre four years ago by Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack in a translation by Marian Buijs that will be used once more by Pilot.

Artistic director Marcus Romer, who has grown to love York so much that he moved to the city last year, is now re-setting the play in the city too. Mirad, which Romer discovered when he met the writer and original director on a cultural exchange, follows a 14-year-old boy's courageous journey from Bosnia to Hull, and onwards to York on a day trip for bric-a-brac.

"It's an important piece for now, as it's a piece about asylum seekers, but interestingly it tells the story from the point of view of the boy and what made him want to come here," says Marcus.

"In Holland, the government considered it such a significant play that every young person between the age of 11 and 18 was made to see it, as the country had been having problems with people attacking refugees. Within six months of that instruction every youngster had seen it: the snowball effect was amazing."

Mirad is set in 1992/1993 but resonates ever louder. "These stories are still happening now, whether it's in Ramallah today or the Channel Tunnel at night. These Bosnian people are our neighbours; only two hours away on a flight. What makes them leave their homeland for here?" says Marcus, who last year took the Pilot Theatre show Taking Sides to Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia.

Mirad will be performed by Francis Jameson, last seen in York in Pilot's Lord Of The Flies in September 1998, and Neve Taylor, best known for playing Jo Doyle, solicitor to Mike Baldwin and Terry Duckworth in Coronation Street. They will present the play in a story-telling style suitable to the intimate Studio space. "Stories will emerge from what is apparently a heap of rubble and rubbish, and will be told by these two fantastic storytellers in a simple and direct way that lets the words and the events have the impact and be incredibly moving and powerful. Being so close to the audience, it has to be done with such precision that it's like painting with a scalpel or performing keyhole surgery," says Marcus.

"Doing this show is all part of a well-balanced programme at the Theatre Royal: Dead Funny in the main house and dead serious in The Studio, although it's not all doom and gloom in Mirad; there's hope in the piece too."

u Please note, The Studio's seating has been refurbished for the new season with the addition of seat backs for "extra comfort", as the press release puts it. "Extra comfort"? Make that "comfort", more like, after two seasons of stiff backs.

Mirad - A Boy From Bosnia, Pilot Theatre, in The Studio, York Theatre Royal, April 11 to 27, at 7.45pm nightly plus 1.30pm, April 17, 18, 23 to 25. Tickets: £5.50 to £8.50, ring 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:47 Friday, April 05, 2002