I DON'T think anyone believes farming is easy, or indeed well-paid nowadays.

With all the news reports about BSE, prices of livestock falling and of course, foot-and-mouth, it's easy to see why farming families are struggling to survive.

And indeed if they are, many members of the younger generation don't see the industry as a viable option anymore.

But Worcester playwright Lance Woodman has gone one step further, and aims to give audiences a flavour of family life for today's hard-hit farmers in his latest play, Red Skies over the Severn.

He said the idea for the play came as he was working on the highly successful series, the Worcester Century Plays, The Same River and Inheritance, for which he wrote the acclaimed scripts.

With a sister who is married to a farmer and another who is a vet, Lance has known the affect the foot-and-mouth epidemic has had on the industry and it's something he was keen to portray.

But he said that when he and the theatre's artistic director Jenny Stephens decided to produce the play, they knew they would be battling against the clock.

A number of the cast had also been affected by the epidemic during the Century Plays, he said.

Jenny was already thinking we should be doing something about farming in Worcestershire, but we knew we would have to strike while the iron was hot if we wanted foot-and-mouth as a backdrop.

Whereas the Century Plays took nearly two years to write, Red Skies over the Severn has taken me six months.

But, he added, that although the play has a message, it is not all doom and gloom and offers lighter moments.Like all families there are lighter,

comic moments which are portrayed in the show, added Lance, of Ilkley

Close, Warndon.

But the playwright, who also is a part-time Information Technology lecturer at University College Worcester, certainly seems to have got it right.

Evening News Deputy Editor Mark Higgitt said that barely a minute passed without some reference direct or anecdotal to issues, difficulties or thoughts which hadn't made headlines or prompted conversations in everyone's homes.

The story of heritage and inheritance, of an industry lurching unavoidably towards irreversable change, after a thousand years or more of apparent constancy, left me with my talking point afterwards.

For more information on the show, which runs until Saturday, November 10, contact the theatre's box office on 01905 27322.