JOHN Kirk will play 16 to 61 and all ages in between over the next two months in the new Studio at York Theatre Royal. Likewise, co-star Lucy Chalkley will be experiencing dramatic changes in age in the trio of two-hander plays.

"It's the biggest case of poetic licence ever!" says 33-year-old John, as he prepares for Wednesday's opening of the inaugural Studio season in the theatre's newly-converted former paint workshop.

From September 5, John and 25-year-old Lucy will be performing John Godber's Happy Jack, a study of two people, one life, from first love to last breath in a South Yorkshire mining community. The central characters, brawling miner Jack and his long-suffering wife Liz, are in their 50s although the play requires them to age downwards to their youth.

Arthur Smith's adults-only Live Bed Show, in repertoire from September 12, is a boy-meets-girl tale for the over-30s that explores the real and imaginary modern relationship of two thirtysomethings, Maria and Cash.

Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs, joining the repertoire from September 19, depicts a teenage Bonnie and Clyde, Pig and Runt, two Cork teenagers on the cusp of 17 who live in their own world defined by a private language, disco dancing and sometimes violence.

John and Lucy were delighted to be chosen by debut-making director Tim Welton for the autumn trilogy. "They're all such different plays, and so it's a chance for audiences to see two people in such different roles," says Lucy.

"In one theatre job, we'll be covering major extremes. In Disco Pigs, Pig and Runt are in this crazy world that they create for themselves to cope with the world; in Live Bed Show, Maria and Cash spend a lot of time in a dream world and so you have to work out when it's real and when it's a fantasy. In Happy Jack, the story covers a whole lifetime."

John believes it will be more interesting for audiences to see actors taking on a variety of ages older and younger than themselves, rather than casting each play to age. He also believes the performances will be marked by a back-to-basics performance style brought about by the requirement to rehearse three plays in a short space of time, while also appearing in The Three Musketeers each night.

"You have to make decisions very quickly and stick to them, and that's what acting demands," he says. "It should be clear and based in human life: there is no room for dallying!"

Lucy concurs: "You can't afford to get hung up on the intricacies of a play. You can't intellectualise; you have to play, and in a way that's what our job is all about."

The opening Studio repertory season at York Theatre Royal runs from September 5 to November 3. Box office: 01904 623568.