Alongside John Doyle’s York histories, a major autumn double was the two Alexander Gelman revivals, reports from Russian society. In a London pub attic, they’d have been widely reviewed; in a Perth studio they were nationally ignored.

Otherwise in Scotland it was the Citizens’ season. Milling foyer crowds attested to the popularity of Rupert Everett’s main house CowardTennessee Williams pairing, but the two studios also burst with life. Ten plays in 90 minutes from Gertrude Stein (one alone in 60 scenes) gave experimental eclat while the Circle Studio in the round played Strindberg’s The Father round a huge authoritarian desk and spread the action of A Taste of Honey across a double bed.

Manchester’s City of Drama year ended with an Israeli theatre season - I caught the Library Theatre’s home-grown offering, an improbably absorbing three-and-three-quarter-hour adaptation of a Singer story Teibele and Her Demon. Enduringly, the year has created new performance spaces like the energetically epic Upper Campfield Market where one of the year’s highlights was the splended, if little-known Mike Harris’s large-scale community play The Peterloo Massacre, a night to remember. Oldham’s summer community play, Heart and Soul, about local Tommyfield market, was another of the year’s successes.

For sheer enterprise, look to Bristol’s Show of Strength, a pub theatre that lost its pub to karaoke and found a new, 13th-centuryvenue with a new, 17th-century play, the unperformed Lady’s Tragedy, to go with it.

But there was also a downside in the South, with Salisbury and Farnham closing for the season. Both went out on a laugh, Salisbury with an immaculate Ben Travers production, Farnham a less happy Moli re.

In such a mood, 87 playwrights calling for new-play quotas looks hopeful; perhaps some of the more famous could ensure they accept regional commissions in future, thereby giving a buzz around the country and emboldening more theatres to take on new work.

Some voices point to London, where commercial concentrations and hopeful fringe actors working for nothing keep up a momentum, then say money is not the real problem. Nonsense. If money is not the whole truth it’s certainly nothing but the truth. David Mamet’s Oleanna is no doubt a topical swipe at political correctness, but would a quarter of our reps be doing it if it had eight characters and three sets instead of two and one respectively?

South West Exeter gives a rare outing to Max Frisch’s incendiary parable and bumps up its studio programme; Southampton looks at Tennyson in a season with a biographical flavour. And Salisbury is sadly missed.

EXETER: Northcott (01392 54853) Misery to February 25, Abigail’s Party March 9-April 1, The Fire Raisers April 27-May 13, Forty Years On May 18-June 3. Studio: Elephant Herd and The Sneeze to February 11. Zoological necrophilia from Hungary teamed with Chekhov shorts, Common Players in A Horrible Horror Show February 14-16, creepy tales with music, Turning Point in Lyn Ferrand’s The Tameness of a Wolf February 21,22,25 on schizophrenia. The Changeling March 1-11, then excellent Theatre Alibi in for piano solo March 14-18, offering Satie-sfaction.

BRISTOL: Old Vic (0117 987 7877) A View from the Bridge February 2-March 4, She Stoops to Conquer March 9-April 8, Rattigan’s wartime Flare Path April 13-May 13, David Goodland’s Life and Death of a Buffalo Soldier May 18-June 3 about GIs in the West Country, then 1960s peace and rock in Jim Cartwright’s Stone Free July 28-August 12.

SOUTHAMPTON: Nuffield (01703 671771) Steve Gooch’s Dark Glory to February 25, on Tennyson, C P Taylor’s wartime And a Nightingale Sang March 9-April 1, John Mortimer’s autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father April 6-29, Stephen Jeffery’s comedy about the family billiard table makers A Going Concern May 18-June 10.

SOUTH Busy days at Basingstoke, an early opening at Newbury, plus a slip south to Hornchurch for Manchester writer Dave Simpson. BASINGSTOKE: Haymarket (01256 465566) Angela Huth’s look at lovers and marriage The Trouble With Old Lovers February 9-March 4, The Diary of Anne Frank March 9-April 1, Dancing at Lughnasa April 13-May 6, Stepping Out May 11-June 10, Compass in A Midsummer Night’s Dream June 21-24.

NEWBURY: Watermill (01635 46044) Goodbye Mr Chips February 14-March 18, James Hilton’s book adapted by Norman Coates, Ben Travers’s Thark March 28-April 29. Michael Fry’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles May 2-June 10, the middle slice of Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests, Living Together June 13-July 22, Michael Heath’s musical Laura July 25-September 2, in which a Viennese cabaret singer faces up to Nazism, Lloyd George Knew My Father September 5-October 7, Othello October 10-November 4.

LEATHERHEAD: Thorndike (01372 377677) Rattigan’s In Praise of Love to February 18. Godber’s Up’n‘Under February 20-25, Richard (Business of Murder) Harris thriller Dead Guilty February 28-March 18.

HORNCHURCH: Queen’s (01708 443333) Anthony Shaffer’s Murderer to February 25, adults play children in Gingerbread group camp holiday comedy, Dave Simpson’s Single Sex March 3-25, The Sound of Music March 31-April 29, Sally Hedges’ Tess of the D’Urbervilles May 5-27.

EAST ANGLIA Interesting seasons from Pat Trueman’s first Colchester spring and Lou Stein’s eighth and final one at Watford.

SOUTHEND-ON-SEA: Palace (01702 342564) Ray Cooney’s affluent Funny Money February 9-25, Hull Truck in Godber’s Passion Killers February 27-March 4, Oleanna March 9-25, SNAP in Steinbeck’s East of Eden March 27-April 1, Ayckbourn’s Time of My Life April 20-May 6, Robin Hawdon thriller Revenge May 18-June 3, 1960s music in Twist and Shout June 5-10.

COLCHESTER: Mercury (01206 573948) Peta Murray’s ballroom dance of a play, Wallflowering to February 11, Priestley time play I Have Been Here Before February 16-March 4, Andrew Rattenbury’s The Return of the Native March 9-April 1, My Mother Said I Never Should April 6-29, Rookery Nook May 4-27.

IPSWICH: Wolsey (01473 253725) Hamlet to February 25, Philip Osment’s What I Did in the Holidays March 2-April 8, Leslie Bruce’s drama of political finagling Keyboard Skills March 23-April 8, Shaw’s The Apple Cart April 12-29, Oleanna May 18-June 3, Wodehouse adaptation Summer Lightning June 15-July 1, Godber’s Happy Families July 6-22.

WATFORD: Palace (01923 225671) Bennett’s Burgess and Blunt coupling Single Spies to February 25, Sharman MacDonald’s forthright exploration of teenage awakenings Borders of Paradise March 16-April 8, Loot April 20-May 13, P G Wodehouse comedy Good Morning, Bill May 25-June 17.

EAST MIDLANDS Leicester and Nottingham are both active centres of invention - a Romanian directed Shrew from one, an opera director’s Twelfth Night at the other, Howard Barker from both, plus some less-known plays by well-known authors at Nottingham.

NORTHAMPTON: Royal (01604 32533) Nick Stafford adapts L P Hartley’s elegaic love story The Go-Between to February 25, Night Must Fall March 3-25, Ayckbourn’s Time and Time Again April 7-29. Shaun McKenna’s tale of murder in 1847 Paris Ruling Passions May 5-27. The Glass Menagerie June 2-17; plus the Royal Youth Theatre in Oh! What A Lovely War! March 30-April 1.

LEICESTER: Haymarket (0116 2539797) Oleanna February 8-March 4, Pam Gems’ Piaf March 17-April 15, The Taming of the Shrew April 21-May 13, Edward II May 23-June 10.

Studio: Phyllis Nagy’s story of a female travel agent who, having met a mysterious man, has Disappeared to February 25, The Wrestling School with Howard Barker’s apocryphal Judith February 28-March 4.

NOTTINGHAM: Playhouse (0115 941 9419) Twelfth Night February 9-March 11, Howard Barker’s The Castle March 14-18, Alistair Beaton’s Gogol adaptation The Nose March 23-April 15, Bennett’s Enjoy April 20-May 13, Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carre May 18-June 3, urban South African revue Jozi Jozi June 6-10, then, for sevens and upwards, a co-production with Teatro Kismet of Pinocchio June 15-July 1, written by Peter Biddle.

DERBY: Playhouse (01332 363275) Richard III February 17-March 11, Jonathan Lewis’s acclaimed soldier’s story Our Boys March 17-April 8, Godber’s Happy Families April 8-May 20, Sondheim’s Assassins May 27-June 17. Studio: Oleanna April 6-29.

WEST MIDLANDS and SOUTH WALES Limited home-grown fare belies the activity at Cardiff’s Sherman. In Cheltenham, these are the final days of home productions for a time as South West Arts yokes the Everyman with Bristol Old Vic, a good hour’s travel apart. Why? Fortunately, Birmingham and Coventry, though physically nearer, keep their separate, busy identities.

CARDIFF: Sherman (01222 230451) Romeo and Juliet February 22-March 4; 13-25. CHELTENHAM: Everyman (01242 572573) Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers to February 18, Liz Lochhead’s Dracula February 23-March 10, Little Shop of Horrors March 23-April 22, BT National Connections shows April 25-29. Richardson Studio: programme to be confirmed.

WORCESTER: Swan (01905 27322) The Seagull February 9-March 4, Fo’s farce Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! March 9-April 1.

COVENTRY: Belgrade (01203 553055) The Browning Version, curtain-raised by Tennessee Williams’ This Property Is Condemned to February 18, Twelfth Night March 6-25, Heartbreak House April 10-29, new “plop-opera” Fungus the Bogeyman May 15-June 3, adapted from Raymond Briggs by Mike Carter and Corin Buckeridge, with Ken Campbell directing, Buddy June 7-17, Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound July 3-22.

BIRMINGHAM: Repertory Theatre (0121 236 4455) Robin Maugham’s 1948 novel The Servant February 10-March 4, adapted by the author, A View from the Bridge March 8-April 1, Pygmalion April 21-May 20, The Importance of Being Earnest May 26-June 24, Anthony Clark’s entrancing version of The Red Balloon June 30-July 29, Studio: Bryony Lavery’s look at four relationships Nothing Compares To You March 31-April 22, Milton Godfrey’s Nights In Darkness April 28-May 20, about a soldier’s haunted past; Lisa Evans’ The Tenant of Wildfell Hall June 9-July 1. Expect more than a standard adaptation.

NORTH WEST Chester goes up a gear as Jeremy Raison takes hold, while Helena Kaut-Howson shows she has not lost her grip in her final season. It’s a departure which everyone in theatre seems to regret and nobody in local authorities seems able to do anything about, with the break-up of Clwyd imminent.

NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE: New Victoria (01782 717962) Bedroom Farce to March 4, Hamlet March 8-April 8, a new production of 1971 Vic wartime documentary Hands Up. For You the War Is Over April 12-22; May 10-13; May 30-June 3, a different struggle in the story of local pit-strike women’s colliery occupation Nice Girls April 26-May 6, The Mikado May 17-27; June 5-24, Berlie Doherty’s Dear Nobody June 28-July 22.

CHESTER: Gateway (01244 340392) Night Must Fall to March 4, Fifties compilation musical Three Steps to Heaven March 10-25, Helen Edmundson’s acclaimed Anna Karenina April 7-29. John McKay’s Crush May 5-27 revives a schoolboy’s passion for his teacher 15 years on. Singing sisters traverse post-war England in Michael Crompton’s musical Blue Moon July 21-August 26.

MOLD: Theatr Clwyd (01332 755114) Mrs Warren’s Profession March 3-April 1, The Rose Tattoo April 28-May 20, Fay Weldon’s Madame Bovary June 9-July 1. Emlyn Williams Theatre: Oleanna April 1-29 (plus Welsh tour), Pinter’s exquisite Old Times May 13-June 10.

LIVERPOOL: Everyman (0151 709 4776) Jim Cartwright’s Two to February 25, Jim Hitchhmough’s Watching March 7-April 1. Not the National Theatre in Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me April 18-22. Playhouse (0151 709 8363) Up’n‘Under to February 11, Dennis Lumborg’s male Shirley Valentine, a one-man play in which divorced Eddie plans to get back with his children, if only for One Fine Day February 14-March 11, thriller Dead Guilty March 20-April 1.

LANCASTER: Dukes (01524 66645) Frisch’s The Fire Raisers to February 18, St Martin’s College in The Taming of the Shrew March 1-4. Williamson Park: The Comedy of Errors June 8-July 8, a new play from Kipling’s Jungle Books July 13-August 26.

GREATER MANCHESTER Post-City of Drama theatres maintain an active programme and Oldham joins Bolton in having a studio theatre.

MANCHESTER: Contact Theatre (0161 274 4400) George F Walker’s Criminals in Love to February 25 brings crime and revolution into lovers’ lives, Generations of the Dead in the Abyss of Coney Island Madness May 4-27, Michael Henry Brown’s generously titled drama whips up a sour souffle of the American dream in a black ghetto. Also a schools’ festival on The Nature of Tyranny March 13-25 and a Manchester-Brazil student project on education March 27-April 1. Brickhouse: Contact Youth Theatre in Jose Rivera’s fairy-tales Giants Have Us In Their Books March 29-April 1.

Library Theatre (0161 236 7110) Twelfth Night to March 4, Oleanna March 8-April 1, a musical Goodnight Mr Tom April 7-May 6, Ayckbourn’s Time of My Life May 10-June 10. Forum Theatre: Our Day Out February 16-March 11.

Royal Exchange (0161 833 9833) Look Back In Anger to February 18, Road March 2-April 1, Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn April 6-May 6, Brad Fraser’s slick Canadian Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love May 11-June 3, Beth Henley’s slice of small town America Crimes of the Heart June 8-July 1, Private Lives July 6-August 5.

BOLTON: Octagon (01204 520661) Talking Heads to February 18, Macbeth February 23-March 18, Bill Naughton’s The Family Way March 23-April 22, Machiavelli comedy La Mandragola: The Root of Desire April 27-May 20, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice May 25-June 17. Bill Naughton Theatre: Kiss of the Spiderwoman March 22-April 15, Fugard’s My Children! My Africa! April 26-May 20.

OLDHAM: Coliseum (0161 624 2829) John Chambers’ Silver Lining to February 11 - upsets among a loveless marriage in cattle-breeding land - See How They Run February 16-March 11, Jimmie Chinn’s story of love and lard Sylvia’s Wedding March 16-April 8, Maureen Chadwick’s bioplay about Josephine Baker, Josephine April 20-May 13. Studio: Robert Farquhar’s Kissing Sid James March 15-25 - would-be lovers in Blackpool - Shaun Prendergast’s Distinguished Service May 3-13, wartime hopes and peacetime realities as seen by a wounded Major and his nurse, then the club world of Graceland May 27-June 3.

YORKSHIRE NORTH EAST Salisbury’s Deborah Paige moves north to Sheffield; Ayckbourn’s stronghold by the North Sea at Scarborough prepares to convert a local cinema into a new super theatre in the round.

SHEFFIELD: Crucible (0114 276 9922) When We Are Married March 3-25. Studio: Boy’s Stuff March 9-25. Richard Hurford’s new play is about Christmas and infertility - “outrageous” says the publicity. Crucible TIE in A World Turned Upside Down March 28-April 1, day and evenings, for 4-8s.

LEEDS: West Yorkshire Playhouse (0113 244 2111) Quarry: Bennett’s Getting On to March 11, Romeo and Juliet March 18-April 29, Coriolanus May ll-June 10, with and directed by Steven Berkoff. Courtyard: Sharman MacDonald’s The Winter Guest to February 18, a new play about relationships between couples of all ages, Northern Broadsides in Blake Morrision’s version of Kleist’s Broken Jug, The Cracked Pot February 23-April 1. Hull Truck in Godber’s Passion Killers April 3-15, Bernard Kops’ new play about a violinist incapacitated by family guilt Call in the Night April 27-May 27.

HARROGATE: Theatre (01423 502116) Oleanna to February 11, Bouncers February 16-March ll, Bleasdale’s vasectomy clinic comedy Having A Ball March 16-April 1, medieval mysteries in The Passion Plays April 6-22.

YORK: Theatre Royal (0904 623568) Blithe Spirit February 24-March 18, Woman in Mind May 19-June 10, Giles Havergal’s witty version of Graham Greene comedy Travels With My Aunt June 23-July 15, Claire Luckham’s Moll Flanders July 21-August 12, Our Day Out August 18-September 9, Cabaret September 22-October 21, Twelfth Night October 27-November 18.

HULL: Hull Truck Theatre (01482 23638) Gordon Steel’s Dead Fish to February 25.

SCARBOROUGH: Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round (01723 370541) New Ayckbourn musical (with John Pattison) about a vicar who seeks sponsorship for a community play in a disused railway station and receives an unexpected offer, A Word from Our Sponsor April 13-June 3. Misery June 8-17; July 6-12; 20-29, Somerset Maugham’s post-Great War howl of horror For Services Rendered June 21-July 5; 13-19; August 10-16; 24-30. And Vanessa Brooks’ comedy in which a little lie leads to big problems Let’s Pretend August 2-9; 17-23 ;31-September 16. Late-night: Pinter’s Betrayal, 10.30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays August 21-September 2.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE: Gulbenkian Studio (0191 230 5151) Foreign Lands February 8-March 4, Karen Hope’s praised play about the effects of 20-year-old murders on a woman returning to Gateshead. Royal Shakespeare Season (0191 232 2061) Theatre Royal: Henry V February 20-25, A Midsummer Night’s Dream February 28-March 7, Twelfth Night March 10-18, Measure for Measure March 21-25. Playhouse: Peer Gynt February 20-25, Thomas Southerne’s 1691 comedy The Wives’ Excuse February 27-March 7, Coriolanus March 9-18, Ford’s The Broken Heart March 20-25. Gulbenkian Studio: Anne Devlin’s After Easter March 9-17, David Edgar’s Pentecost March 20-25.

SCOTLAND A busy spring at the Citizens’ with a one of the finest Jacobean tragedies, while Perth revives the old rep thriller-comedy formula and Dundee plays another of its Scottish Moli res.

MUSSELBURGH: Brunton (0131 665 2240) Raymond Ross looks at James VI before he came to England as James I in The King of the Witches February 10-25. At Musselburgh Town Hall the Community Play Making Up Time March 10-ll; 15-18.

EDINBURGH: Royal Lyceum (0131 229 9697) Bedroom Farce February 10-March 4, Waiting for Godot March 10-April 1, Colin MacDonald’s The Gowk Storm April 7-22, from Nancy Brysson Morrison’s book about three sisters in remote 1850s Scotland.

Traverse (0131 228 1404) Graeae in Ubu February 8-12, Benchtours in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories February 15-19, Jose Rivera’s Marisol March 3-26, in which a Puerto Rican Bronx woman reads of her own murder, Phyllis Nagy’s Disappeared March 29-April 2 (see Leicester), Mike Cullen’s The Collection in May.

GLASGOW: Citizens (0141 429 0022) Thomas Middleton’s Women Beware Women to February 25, Giles Havergal’s adaptation of Jeff Torrington’s 1960s Gorbals novel Swing, Hammer, Swing March 10-April 1, Terry Neason’s Wild ‘n’ Wet Ones April 4-22, Wildcat in a musical farce Bedfellows April 26-May 13, Clyde Unity in John Binnie’s play about an unhappy marriage in 1930s Govan Breadmakers May 16-20. Circle Studio: return of Harry Gibson’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s extraordinary tapestry of druggie Edinburgh Trainspotting February 23-March 18, Pinter’s Betrayal March 30-April 22; 7:84 in Born Guilty April 27-May 13, about the legacy of Fascism. Lookout in Nicola McCartney’s Easy May 16-20. Stalls Studio: Empty Space in To The Lighthouse February 28-March 4; 14-18, Fifth Estate in the wry Nancy Sleekit - a kind of female Sweeney Todd - and Howard’s Revenge - in which an actor rehearses Rob Roy - March 7-11, Jon Pope directs a version of Dostoyevsky’s schizophhrenia novel The Double March 29-April 22, Robert David MacDonald’s Persons Unknown May 3-20 sounds at though it is about a Kaspar Hauser situation.

PERTH: Theatre (01738 621031) Victorian thriller The Late Edwina Black February 10-25, The Importance of Being Earnest March 3-18, Priestley’s Dangerous Corner March 24-April 8, school farce The Happiest Days of Your Life April 21-May 6.

DUNDEE: Rep Theatre (01382 223530) Amadeus to February 18, Rona Munro’s story of resilient Belfast women Bold Girls March 3-18, David Kane’s widely praised farce Dumbstruck March 27-April 1, Hector Macmillan’s Noblesse Obleege, otherwise Moli re’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme April 7-29, Liz Lochhead’s Dracula May 5-27 and Crown of Destiny May 30-June 3, with Theatre San Fil, part of the Scottish International Children’s Festival.