YORK pantomime favourites David Leonard and Suzy Cooper will star at the Theatre Royal this summer in Alan Ayckbourn's Man of The Moment.

Suzy, last seen in York shining in the title role in Aladdin last Christmas, will play Jill, a TV presenter who lands herself in trouble by bringing a reluctant have-a-go hero face to face with villainous Vic, 17 years after the crime that briefly had their worlds colliding.

Vic is the latest baddie role for York's champion panto villain David Leonard, whose Theatre Royal CV also includes lead parts in Noel Coward's Private Lives and Richard III. This time he will be playing a crook who has been transformed into a TV megastar with his own chat show, a beautiful villa on the Mediterranean and a desirable, lifestyle.

Ayckbourn's play looks at the pushy role of the media as Jill seeks to bring out Douglas's resentment of Vic's glamorous world. Douglas, however, is far too nice to make "good television", until his holiday in Spain turns to pain and he has another go at saving the world from the "reformed" villain.

Man Of The Moment will run from June 9 to 27 and will be joined in the summer line-up by York Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society's production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, directed by Paul Laidlaw from May 19 to 30, and York Opera's staging of Benjamin Britten's haunting Peer Gynt, a tragic tale of misfortune, on June 30 and July 1, 3 and 4.

The season's second repertory production will be Alan Bleasdale's oft-performed Having A Ball, a close-shave comedy set in a vasectomy clinic. From the writer of television social dramas The Boys From The Blackstuff, GBH and Jake's Progress, this is a "nakedly rude play that features men with no clothes on whatsoever". Dates will be July 10 to August 1.

Carousel tickets are already on sale at the Theatre Royal box office on 01904 623568, and seats for Man Of The Moment and Having A Ball can be booked from March 21, followed by Peter Grimes on April 6. Prices range from £6 to £13.25 with concessions available.

For each show, there will be a sign language-interpreted performance for deaf people and an audio-described performance for visually impaired people. More details on performance dates will follow, along with confirmation of the final Theatre Royal production for August, which is still under discussion.

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