I DISAGREE with your letter writer in last week's paper who objected to a member of the audience standing up and straightforwardly complaining to the cast of The Old Country that he couldn't hear. He shouldn't have had to.

I am sorry if this outburst spoiled your correspondent's enjoyment of the play (which, no doubt, he could hear) but the complainer was having his enjoyment of the play marred by either poor voice projection or poor amplification.

It seems to me that the discourtesy was all from either the touring company or the management in not providing theatre-goers with what they had paid for.

I had no problem with that production - with a seat on the front row of the stalls I should hope not - but my party had great difficulty in fully hearing the production of Two Thousand Years on Thursday evening.

We were seated about two-thirds back in the stalls and by comparing notes in the interval we found our problem shared by those around us. Most of the time we could hear most of the men's dialogue, but not all the time, and the actor playing the Israeli, though with excellent projection, employed such an impenetrable accent, that he was hard to understand. The women were harder to hear and several times spoke with their backs to the audience which didn't help.

These are not isolated problems. Porgy and Bess was disappointing in the aspect of poor articulation from many of the singers and an overpowering orchestra, so that if you didn't know the plot, as I didn't, you were no wiser at the end.

Aren't theatre-goers entitled to better than this? Is it beyond the wit of the theatre management to overcome this problem. As a suggestion couldn't a member of staff, who is not familiar with the play, sit in the rear seats during rehearsal or first night, and report just how audible a production is.

We are justifiably proud of our theatre in Malvern and want to support it, but if this problem of audibility can't be addressed, then I, for one, will reluctantly give up on it.

BETTY MOULDER, Challenger Close, Malvern.