After running the Summer Play Festival at the Manor Pavilion Theatre, Sidmouth, for the last 22 years, for the 23rd season Charles Vance has handed over the day-to-day running to his daughter Jackie Vance, and to Su Gilroy who was Company Manager for the Festival in 1997 and 1998

After running the Summer Play Festival at the Manor Pavilion Theatre, Sidmouth, for the last 22 years, for the 23rd season Charles Vance has handed over the day-to-day running to his daughter Jackie Vance, and to Su Gilroy who was Company Manager for the Festival in 1997 and 1998. They're really looking forward to being very involved in the company's 2009 season which opens on June 27.

The tickets are �11 and �12 and Herald readers can take advantage of a special season ticket offer where you can get the first 12 plays for the price of 10 - a great deal! See the Sidmouth Herald for details of this and your voucher to claim the offer.

The plays have already been chosen for them by Charles and his wife Imogen, and are the usual wonderful mix of farce, thriller, comedy and drama. The season starts with the very atmospheric The Late Edwina Black, where suspicion is rife and very damaging. Next is Alan Ayckbourn's Living Together, which is one of the Norman Conquests, where Norman continues to wreak havoc; not good for anyone in his family, but great fun for us. Then there is the ever popular story of suburbia: Abigail's Party by Mike Leigh, known by many from being show on television. The first farce of the season is the brilliantly funny Boeing-Boeing by Marc Camoletti, with no less than three air hostesses, and this is followed by the mystery comedy The House on the Cliff, in which Nurse Pepper has more than just a patient to look out for! The play which is performed either side of the Folk Festival is another Ayckbourn creation, this time the tale of three bedrooms and four couples - Bedroom Farce. The next play is a classic farce from the master of the genre - the vicarage-set Pool's Paradise by Philip King. They follow this with Rope, a murder drama by Patrick Hamilton, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, in which the tension rises and rises. Next is a play from the master sleuth - House Guest by Francis Durbridge in which twist follows turn, and turn follows twist. In Murder Mistaken Teddy Bear thinks he has everything going his way. Then there is a classic love story set on the Cornish coast, from a wonderful writer - September Tide by Daphne Du Maurier. The twelfth play of the season, Unexpected Guest by the queen of crime fiction, Agatha Christie, will have you guessing right until the end. They are delighted to be able to close the season with a brand new play with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic character - The Return of Sherlock Holmes.