DAVID Fielding is the man behind the transformation of The RSC's The Other Place.

The black, featureless auditorium has been cleared of clutter, painted white and the audience seating re-arranged. The huge blank canvas that is now TOP awaits the ideas and imaginations of each director and designer - and it has worked stunningly.

Critical acclaim and audience enthusiasm has greeted both Richard II and La Lupa and, according to Fielding, the actors have also enjoyed the space.

"I think it has been an extremely successful idea. It has given the actors a greater feeling of proximity with the audience and both productions so far have looked completely different, in their own ways," he said.

Now Fielding faces a new challenge.

The next new production is his own - a reworking of Bernard Shaw's mighty Back to Methuselah.

"The challenge now is to reinvent the space for a third time and give it a different flavour," he said.

But there's more than a design challenge here because the work which GBS regarded as his masterpiece is actually five complete plays, originally designed to be played over four or five nights.

So the texts have had to be cut. The total ten hours is down to under four and manages, hopes Fielding, the fine balance of keeping the audience engaged while not sacrificing any of Shaw's argument.

The work is a journey through time and, says Fielding, couldn't be more relevant now.

"He explores the biological idea of what we might be like when we have evolved through time - if we lived to be 300, like characters in the Old Testament. With all the debate at the moment about the human genome and genetics, it couldn't be more relevant."

Back to Methuselah previews from August 24 and opens on August 30.