A FOLK festival, Gardener's Question Time, an evening with Germaine Greer and a Pinter double bill are the February highlights at The Theatre, Chipping Norton.

Fresh from directing the sell-out run of the pantomime Puss in Boots, theatre director Caroline Sharman has programmed a mix of music, drama, comedy, dance, film and workshops for the spring.

Highlights include a three-day folk festival early in February, with Ceilidh dancing, live music, morris dancing and pub jam sessions.

On February 24, (8pm) the European Arts Company will bring two of Nobel Prize-winner Harold Pinter's short plays, A Slight Ache and The Lover.

Later that month, Professor Germaine Greer, women's liberation pioneer and author of The Female Eunuch, will be dropping in to talk about her career and answer questions.

This is the first of several celebrity events at The Theatre this spring; March sees illusionist Geoffrey Durham coming to Chipping Norton with his show designed especially for smaller theatres where audiences can get close to the magic and in April, BBC Newsreader and journalist George Alagiah will be discussing his experiences on the front line and his interviews with people from Nelson Mandela to President Mugabe.

Also in April, the town celebrates the 400th anniversary of its market charter, and to mark the occasion Chipping Norton Youth Theatre will be performing Unlawful Assembly, a promenade play exploring the town and its people, its past, present and future.

Following on from the success of 2004's Opera in the Sticks tour of La Boheme, The Theatre is also producing a new translation of Mozart's Don Giovanni, which will premiere in May before touring to village halls throughout Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Buckinghamshire.

The Theatre's prestigious gallery, which has hosted exhibitions by Picasso and Hockney, will be featuring the work of Oliver Parker, a local photographer whose series of Foxhounds portraits won a Jerwood Photography Award.

The creator and illustrator of the Transformers series, Andrew Wildman, will be exhibiting his comic book art, and wildlife cameraman Tim Shepherd, whose work includes Life in the Undergrowth and Planet Earth, will be exhibiting his paintings.

There is also a film programme featuring the best in current, classic and foreign language films, as well as a full programme of workshops and events for children and adults. For more details or to request a copy of the brochure contact the box office on 01608 642350.