I have never before opened a theatre programme and found that the headings for some of the sections it contained have been translated into hieroglyphics - but that was the surprise that awaited me at the recent superb studio production of Antony and Cleopatra at Birmingham's Crescent Theatre.

On the other hand, it was the kind of bonus that Crescent patrons have been able to enjoy for several years, thanks to administrator Jane Mather and the assiduous detective work that she applies to her built-in role as programme compiler.

For instance, the production of Copenhagen, Michael Frayn's story of nuclear scientists from opposite sides who managed to meet during the Second World War, was accompanied by a pocket-sized resum> of key dates in the war, the background to the German and American efforts to develop nuclear weapons, definitions of terms running from Atom to Uncertainty Principle, three pages about the real people on whom the play was based and another one about Michael Frayn.

She guided theatregoers to useful websites, offered a potted history of nuclear weapons and threw in a reminder of the 1984 BBC Television programme Threads, about the effects of an atom bomb attack on the British Isles.

A Mather programme is something that reaches beyond the confines of a theatre seat. When you get it home and out of the half-light, you are liable to find you can settle down to 15 minutes' informative reading. By this time, she has compiled well over 50 and it is not an exaggeration to suggest that they could and should become collector's items.

I know that the Theatre Museum largely disclaims any interest in amateur theatre, but a few Mather programmes in its locker would not come amiss as histories of the future.

Jane, who joined the Crescent in 1989 and became its full-time administrator in September 2003, routinely researches, writes, designs, photocopies and collates the booklet-style A5 programmes.

They normally run to 20 pages but have stretched to 24 with productions such as Nicholas Nickleby and Murder on the Nile - always on the wings of detective work for which she finds room between her roles in marketing, supervising deliveries to the theatre, press relations, writing and despatching flyers about the shows, designing Crescent leaflets and producing advertisements for use in external publications.

For this month's Antony and Cleopatra programme, the photographs she wanted became available only at lunchtime, a few hours before curtain-up on the first night. She got them in, sandwiched between her summary of film versions of the Cleopatra story - Caesar and Cleopatra (1946), Cleopatra (1963) and Carry on, Cleo (1964) - and her page of suggestions for further reading.

Then, with deadline rapidly approaching, it was time for the photocopying and stapling. There is much to a Mather programme - more even than the abundance that meets the eye.

When Coleshill Drama Group opens its 73rd season tonight with a brand new look at Sherlock Holmes, it plans to answer all sorts of questions.

One of them is, how did Watson and Holmes save each other's lives? Another is, why did Holmes keep telling Watson that he was a bloody fool? And why - it says here - was the profound fecundity of the Holmes family so important?

There are others. The answers, it seems, will arrive at Coleshill Town Hall in Sherlock Holmes - The Ultimate Mystery, along with mad witches, revolting peasants, attractive young French brandy smugglers and things that go howl in the night.

W A Johnson's comedy is described as a politically incorrect comedy spoof, in the best possible taste.

There was a particularly interesting line in the splendid production of A Man for All Seasons at the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, last week.

It came in the form of a perplexing question: "Do you see some third alternative?"

I can't remember what the answer was, but it should have been No, on the grounds that there are never more than two alternatives. Get up to three, and you run into options.

Presumably, this was a minor aberration on the part of the author, Robert Bolt - who also takes credit, if that is the word, for the line that described the Pope as a descendant of St Peter.

Shock, horror! Either he meant successor, or else there's been more going on in the Vatican for the last 2,000 years than some of us have suspected.

The central role of Sir Thomas More was taken by Martin Shaw - a graduate from the Crescent Theatre.

We haven't heard from our friends the gremlins just lately, but they've made their presence felt in the press release for the Birmingham School of Acting's winter season.

The Plough and the Stars, it says, will run at the Crescent Theatre studio from Wednesday, December 9 to Saturday, December 10. At least the Saturday is spot-on.

That superb thriller-for-two, Sleuth, will be at the Crescent Theatre next week. Anthony Shaffer's drama, first seen at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, in 1970, subsequently clocked up more than 2,000 performances both in the West End and on Broadway before becoming the film starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier.

It offers a tremendous challenge to its participants, who in the Crescent production will be Craig Deeley, as Milo Tindle - the Michael Caine role - and Michael Allen, as the highly-dangerous joke-playing loner into whose clutches he falls.

Incidentally, I hear that the setbuilders have their own name for the show: Slooft. Now why didn't Shaffer think of that?