A FORMER Lord Mayor of York will be demoted to the humble office of Mayor of Clecklewyke next week when he treads the boards of Friargate Theatre, York.

Councillor David Wilde, who has represented the Walmgate ward on the City of York Council for 20 years, served as the city's Lord Mayor in 1995. Now he joins York Settlement Players to play the mayor once more in When We Are Married, J B Priestley's comic tale of scandalous revelations striking the silver wedding anniversary celebrations of three couples in a turn-of-the-20th century Yorkshire industrial town.

No stranger to the stage, Councillor Wilde acted with the Arts Centre Theatre Group in the 1970s, where he first met John White, director of next week's production. Since then he has become a puppeteer, playing his latest show, Potato Comedy, in an amphitheatre in Crete while on holiday in the summer.

"It will be interesting to act again, even though I have only one line," says David, who is part of a Settlement cast given the honour of being the first amateur company to stage a show at the new Friargate Theatre.

The Players, founded in the 1920s, are looking forward to this new chapter in their history, not least to using Friargate Theatre's unusual traverse performance space.

Director John White, a professional actor for 17 years, says: "I can't see any problems at all in performing in a traverse theatre; the main challenge in a place like this is getting on and off. I've worked at The Other Place at Stratford, and I remember at the original Other Place we had to exit through the Ladies!"

Like many other drama groups in and around the city, the Settlement Players have no theatre of their own and rely on access to other people's venues, and so they are delighted to be playing Friargate.

Settlement secretary Helen Taylor says: "We've performed in theatres on the city perimeter which have excellent facilities but found them difficult to fill over a four-night run. Friargate Theatre not only enjoys an ideal position but also has back-stage facilities which are a complete luxury."

The Players will be enjoying those "luxury facilities" for a week, moving in on Sunday in preparation for When We Are Married's run from November 29 to December 2. Performances are at 7.30pm nightly, plus 2pm next Saturday. Tickets: £6.50, concessions £5; available from York Theatre Royal, tel 01904 623568, or on the door.