If you are looking for enthusiasm, enterprise and bravery, look no further.

Bilston Operatic Company member Collene Louisa Webb has every attribute in abundance - and she has demonstrated the fact with theatrical flair.

She has written a musical - story, script, music and libretto - and used a computer program to orchestrate it for eight instruments. Having done that, she became voice coach and choreographer, booked a small theatre and staged it for two nights with herself in the leading role.

This would be quite an achievement for anybody . . . but when you're only 16?

At their home in Wombourne, near Wolverhampton, Collene and her mother formed Serendipity Productions and simply went ahead. Audiences at the Mill Theatre, Sedgley, were disappointing - well, naturally, they had never heard of In the Nick of Time so they stayed away, which is what people tend to do - but the reactions were distinctly encouraging.

Elaine Hickman-Luter, Equity member who directed In the Nick of Time and has been a member of Bilston O C for nearly 30 years, said: "I think Collene is amazing. She has such a lot of ability."

It's a young people's show set in a school, with a story about a girl who is given a magic watch by a wizard and then finds she can bring time to a sudden halt - which is pretty vital because she needs to prevent something terrible happening, about which the wizard warns her.

Collene - who also uses her second name, Louisa, for official purposes because both her great-grandmothers were Louisa - wants to write something else but not just yet because she wants to get back on stage. She hopes to enter the acting profession and will be going to Wolverhampton City College to study for a performing arts diploma.

Watch this space.

Something new is afoot in Halesowen.

Mark Moran's The Final "45 Live with Frank Farmer", presented by Mayhem Theatre, won the Best Original Play award at a festival in Evesham in March - so it is now coming up for a second airing in a double bill with Alan Ball's Bachelor Holiday at Leasowes Theatre, Halesowen, from tomorrow until Saturday.

It is the story of the last airing of 45 Live, which Frank Farmer has been presenting for seven years on American television - but why is it the last one, and what happens next?

Mark is a dispensing optician in Halesowen who has been seen on stage with Halesowen Musical Comedy Company and Old-bury Rep. He has written the play as a personal reminder of television's bygone Tales of the Unexpected and The Twilight Zone, to which he used to be addicted a quarter of a century ago.

He said: "I used to love Tales of the Unexpected and decided to have a bash at writing one after talking about it one night with some friends. It's a shame that series like that have been replaced by Big Brother and that sort of nonsense."

To which, I can only add: "Hear, hear!"

Just a note to say that the habitually excellent annual summer repertory season is now underway at the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton.

This week's offering is The Boundary, by Michael Claughton; last week's was Murder with Love, by the everreliable Francis Durbridge; and next week's will be Boeing-Boeing, by Marc Camoletti, which will complete the first half of the six-week season.

I mention this because I think that artistic directors should welcome with open arms the rare opportunity to drop in and get a whole bunch of ideas for their own programmes from the living theatre, rather than from rightsholders' catalogues, if the play of the week is available for amateur production.

Boeing-Boeing was much in favour some time ago, but I have seen it only once in recent years and it is surely time to give it another whirl.

I shall for ever be grateful to its writer, Marc Camoletti, for Don't Dress for Dinner, the rib-tickling tale of a twotiming husband, his best friend, his wife and his cook, which Sutton Arts Theatre memorably presented a few years back.

Another tale from the life of DoIt-Yourself Dave Williamson, the amiable and indomitable handyman who, as I told you last October, painted 250 square metres of Crescent Theatre auditorium single-handed with a four-inch brush and who has more recently been saving unsuspecting motorists from council wheel-clampers by shouting warnings across the street from an upstairs window.

He was using his cordless drill while doing some set-building when he smelled burning. He could not see where it was coming from - so still clutching his drill, he hurried to the foyer, where the smell was still prominent.

Then he found that the drill was on fire.

I could see that Dave had survived, but, naturally, I was worried about the welfare of the drill. Was it all right, I asked him.

"Not really", said Dave. "It went in the skip."