Howard Brenton is the man who wrote Wesley to be performed in a Methodist chapel, and Scott of the Antarctic, to be performed on an ice rink.

I don't know what surroundings he had in mind when he wrote Bloody Poetry, but I was fascinated by its current presentation on the Internet. After a warning that the entry about the play - which concerns Byron, Shelley and Mary Shelley - may have been truncated because only the first 600 words or so can be read by nonmembers of The Literary Encyclopaedia, I realised that it had indeed been cut off in its prime, and most intriguingly at that.

It ends: "Constant references are made to the way in which stories are embellished, and written documents are produced in order to establish a particular view-po."

Alas, my sheltered existence has thus far never led me to a view-po. The nearest I have got to one is a recurring dream about sitting on a particularly public loo with four glass sides - but this, uncomfortably clearly, is always a view-loo, presumably one rung up from a view-po.

Not that any of this need matter to Hall Green Little Theatre, which embarks on Bloody Poetry on May 2. Nor, indeed, will director Jean Wilde and the company lose any sleep over my experiences after a production, many years ago, of a play which, like this one, involves people travelling on a train.

I was so impressed by the unremitting soundtrack that the director was kind enough to let me have a copy. For months thereafter, I was to be found sitting alongside my now long-gone tape-recorder, supping a cup of coffee and trying not to spill it while my knees and hands responded with a fine degree of haplessness to the rhythm of the railway.

Sadly I have to report that I was eyed with a distinct lack of sympathy by my nearest and dearest, who fortunately never quite got as far as telephoning for the men in the long white coats.

Tim Firth's Neville's Island provoked Worcester's Swan Theatre into the most memorable set I have seen - and introduced its characters by having them make their first entrance swimming.

It is the story of four businessmen who find themselves stranded on an island in a lake while they are on an Outward Bound sort of course and it has many very funny moments, not the least of which is the ceremonial blessing of the sausage before it is shared among them.

Sutton Coldfield's Highbury Little Theatre does not have the space or the facilities to emulate that bygone production, but I am sure the Liz Parry's production for the Highbury Players, which will run from May 6-17, will give audiences ample opportunity to empathise with actors Peter Molloy, Nigel Higgs, Richard Irons and Rob Hicks.

The accoutrements include a gyrfalcon, the biggest falcon in the world, which Highbury has obtained from the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain and when it is finished with it will be passed on to another group, also called the Highbury Players, but based in Cosham, near Portsmouth.

The Arcadians went one stage further than is the custom when their programme cautioned their audience to expect gunfire in Annie, Get Your Gun last week.

The usual programme note simply warns about the noise, but The Arcadians were not taking any chances of spreading alarm and despondency. Beneath the impressive list of musical numbers that shame many modern shows, both in number and quality, came the warning in big bold type: "The firearms used in this production fire blanks and there is no danger for either the audience or cast."

My recurring attempts to point out to our playwrights the little things in life that could add another glimmer to their comedies and farces are now being supported by Boris Johnson.

The engaging blond blunderbuss - who, admittedly, seems to have recognised that running for Mayor of London is not necessarily the occasion for putting a forthright foot in it - appears to have been reverting to type when he met Brian Paddick, the homosexual former police chief who is his Lib Dem opponent, on the South Bank.

He is reported to have bounded up to him with a cry of, "How are you, old fruit?"

A member of the Paddick party went into a giggle, whereupon the ever-resourceful Boris responded by saying, "Oh, Lord, I didn't mean it like that, honestly", before anxiously explaining that he had inadvertently picked the greeting as a harmless parallel to old bean or old chap.

Who cares? I hope that somewhere an aspiring Ayckbourn writes it down.

Johnslim47@aol.com

* WHAT'S ON

Kiss Me, Kate, Studley Operatic Society, Palace Theatre, Redditch (to Saturday).

Titanic, Worcester Operatic & Dramatic Society, Swan Theatre, Worcester (to Saturday).

Fiddler on the Roof, Manor Operatic Society, Sutton Coldfield Town Hall (April 22-26).

Great Expectations, Aldridge Youth Theatre (senior members), (April 24-26).

The Snow Queen, Wolverhampton Central Youth Theatre, Newhampton Arts Centre, Wolverhampton (Apr 25 & 26).

Teechers, Stage 2, Crescent Theatre, Birmingham (to Saturday).

Me and My Girl, Solihull Operatic Society, Solihull Library Theatre (Apr 28-May 3).

Show Boat, West Bromwich Operatic Society, Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton (Apr 29-May 3).

The Blue Room, Swan Theatre Amateur Company, Swan Theatre, Worcester (Apr 29-May 3).

Bloody Poetry, Hall Green Little Theatre (May 2-10).