Members of Wythall Theatre Company have been putting a damper on rehearsals of The Cemetery Club, the bitter-sweet comedy about widows who meet regularly to tend their husband's graves.

It's a fairly forceful damper, too - because two of them, Beryl Linforth and Val Archer, are required to throw a drink into each other's face.

It seems that it's quite difficult to do it properly. Cast member Estelle Shutkever, who has been watching the watery exchange for weeks, said: "It's very difficult to get it just right and everybody gets soaked, with mascara running."

The group was founded in the 1950s - but when The Cemetery Club opens next week it will achieve one of the most remarkable statistics in the company's history. Estelle, who joined 47 years ago, is the longest-serving in a five-strong cast with a combined member-ship of the group that totals 180 years.

She told me: "Because we're all in the older age group and have known each other for so many years, there's a lovely feeling abut the rehearsals, even if we do get wet."

The production, at the Dove-house Theatre, Solihull, will run from Wednesday to Saturday next week.

* Euan Rose, Crescent Theatre member who is the joint-creator of the hit Brummie musical Wallop Mrs Cox , sounded understandably chuffed when he was giving me an interim report on 3-1-6 the sexy drama he tried out at Birmingham's Custard Factory last year and which is now enjoying a professional production at the Hay-market Theatre, Basingstoke.

"I don't know yet whether any West End producers have been in, but there have been lots of people from the industry generally, so I think we shall see a tour. And there was an independent producer looking at the possibilities of television - but there's a lot of mileage in the stage show yet.

"Michael [Lumsden} goes straight into Chichester in a production involving Penelope Keith, but they are all desperate to stay and the audiences have been great, so I'm on cloud nine"

The two actresses involved in the play - whose title means three people, one drama, six days - are Sarah Manners (Becks in Casualty) and Natalie Rolls (Detective Sergeant Debbie McAllister in The Bill).

The Haymarket production runs until Saturday.

* I got a grammatical shock as I sat in the attractive studio theatre of Highbury Little Theatre for Recipe for Murder, by J D Robbins.

Confronted with a surprising accusation, Joanne Bellenger, giving a good imitation of a stone-faced bitch for the evening, responded by saying, "Me? I mean I?"

It was only a tiny slice of the script but it seemed a most unlikely bit of self-correction, given the circumstances in which it was required to be uttered - and particularly as it served only to produce an awareness of its prissy precision.

Incidentally, the studio at the Sutton Coldfield venue must be in with a chance of claiming the prize for the most out-of-theway bit of any theatre anywhere. The journey from the foyer is a miracle of mind-bending corners on a route march that eventually leads the intrepid explorer upstairs to the studio entrance.

Arriving in the foyer within an ace of being late, I was grateful for the confident guidance of Highbury chairman Steve Bowyer - and later, for that of Rob and Denise Phillips, whom I joined in the front row and who later guided me back to the safety of the bar.

But if ever I am intrepid enough to venture there on my own, 100 yards of stout string tied to the front door handle and unwinding from my pocket strikes me as a pretty good idea.

* Talking of studio theatres, the one upstairs at the Rose Theatre, Kidderminster, home of The Nonentities, claims a particular place in my affections - on account of its air-conditioning system.

This consists of a box mounted on the wall by the entrance, and its name is discreetly displayed upon its front: Mr Slim.

Fine, except that I'm usually associated with hot air, not cool.

* How did Messrs Lerner and Loewe, creators of My Fair Lady, manage to look almost exactly half a century into the future in preparing for the show's first performance on March 15, 1956?

I ask, because I saw two productions of it last week on successive nights. And on the second, last Thursday, the Kidderminster Operatic & Dramatic Society programme called the first scene "A cold March night."

When I had set off from home, my car said the temperature was minus 5 degrees. When I emerged from the Rose Theatre four hours later, it was minus 6.

On the previous evening, at Birmingham's Crescent Thea-tre, The Arcadians' programme had the same wording but it had not been quite so spine-chillingly accurate.