A STAR-studded production of Far From the Madding Crowd will re-launch professional theatre at The Swan.

The adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel, starring Stephen McGann, Frazer Hines and Kevin Pallister, will follow an amateur season at the theatre, which will re-open in April.

This production will be followed by a new John Godber play staged by Hull Truck, Bury St Edmund's theatre company's production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and a Christmas show.

The theatre's new manager Chris Jaeger, director of Huntingdon Hall, has announced the new programme.

Eight years ago, Mr Jaeger and his team turned around the fortunes of Huntingdon Hall and it is hoped he will do the same for the theatre, which has been closed since January.

"It is our aim to try and make the Swan Theatre a theatre for the people of Worcester, which they will feel proud of and which they will feel ownership of," said Mr Jaeger.

"If I didn't believe it could be done I wouldn't be doing it."

Although the Swan will no longer be a producing house, Mr Jaeger has ambitious plans to forge links with other local venues and theatre companies, of which full details will be announced later.

Challenges

Among other changes The Swan aims to host film screenings and music including tribute bands and dance.

"We have never been able to stage dance at Huntingdon Hall because the stage is very hard and not sprung," said Mr Jaeger.

"Huntingdon Hall had a very good working relationship with the Swan in that they didn't do music and we didn't do theatre.

"But there were small scale plays that would have been perfect on the stage of the hall and there were tribute bands that need the lights and the big stage of the Swan.

"Now we can programme events for the suitable venues."

One of the biggest challenges Mr Jaeger faces is changing people's attitude towards the theatre.

"When I first came to Huntingdon Hall the one really big problem was that people perceived it as an ailing place," he said.

"Now I need to change the view people have of the Swan. In many cases, the view is that it is ailing."

Decisions on staffing the re-opened theatre have not yet been made but it will operate under the Huntingdon Arts banner and share some of the same staff.