Feather Boy (BBC1)

Now You're Talking! (BBC1)

ROBERT Nobel is bullied by his fellow school pupils. They call him Robert No-Brain. Robert No-Chance. And he's about to become Robert No-Dad.

When his mum and dad split up, no amount of telling him that "it's not your fault" can ease the pain. He retreats to a place where he always goes when things get too much - his dreams, in which he finds freedom and joy flying.

Based on Nicky Singer's book, Feather Boy is one of those children's TV series that adults will complain is too good for youngsters.

Certainly much love and attention have been lavished on the production, from the special effects for Robert's dreams and his dashes along the "rat trap" on his way home, to the casting of the adults. Sheila Hancock, Ronald Pickup and Lindsey Coulson are names that many peaktime dramas would be grateful to employ.

Robert himself is played by Thomas Sangster, a bespectacled young actor recognisable from Brit rom-com Love Actually, and he does a good enough job enlisting our sympathy as his family breaks up and he's pelted with rotten apples at school.

It took half-an-hour to reach the real life place that he's been visiting in his dreams - a residential care home for the elderly, where pupils go on a storytelling project.

A cantankerous old woman in a wheelchair is obviously going to change Robert's life. Allotted a young partner for the exercise, Edith says sharply: "I don't want this one." She surveys the room and her beady eye settles on Robert. "I want that one," she says in a tone that indicates she'll not be argued with.

There was a feeling that the story was being dragged out, perhaps unnecessarily, for six episodes. Having learnt that the BBC intends to edit it into a 90-minute film for screening later this year, I'm rather think that might been better in the first place.

Now You're Talking! is Kilroy by any other name. The same team is producing the weekday, morning talk show. Same sort of set, same sort of subjects, same sort of talk.

Five Live's breakfast show host Nicky Campbell and Loose Women's Nadia Sawalha are taking turns to present the discussions in this bid to retrieve viewers who've deserted to ITV1's Tricia in Kilroy's absence.

This is hardly trend-setting, taboo-breaking, much-watch TV. Campbell is Kilroy without the tan, required to wander around the audience and point the talk in the right direction. Anyone look for hard-hitting, controversial conversation will be disappointed. If that does happen, they're likely to be asked to leave (witness what happened to Kilroy).

The opening topic, Money Secrets And Relationships, was disappointingly bland. We can only hope things perk up when the promised live shows, dealing with topical subjects, materialise.

Woman in Black, Billingham Forum

SCARED? Who's scared? Well me, actually. And the rest of the audience as well, if the jittery giggling in the interval was any indication.

I'd heard that Woman in Black was a scary play but I had my doubts. After all, the Forum is a friendly, family sort of place and scanning through the programme, I noted the cast consists of just two chaps. The set indicates backstage in a theatre, with a theatrical hamper and a couple of chairs. How scary could it be?

The plot, a play within a play, revolves around a young solicitor travelling to a remote old house to sort out the papers of someone who has just died. But the dreadful goings-on there and the undoubted supernatural presence in the house prompts the question: who you gonna call? The answer has to be someone with a defibrillator and a cup of hot sweet tea.

It's a tribute to the skill of actors Paul Webster and Damien Matthews, who create such an atmosphere that disbelief is totally suspended. We sat there like kids on a ghost train, knowing there were lots of frights in store but not knowing where they were going to come from.

Much is owed to the set and the lighting, gauzy curtains and imaginative use of props. A locked door features strongly - you know fine well that sooner or later somebody's going to open it!

Based on the novel by Scarborough writer Susan Hill, the play is in its 14th year in London. The theatre was full to bursting last night, so if you want tickets, you'll have to be quick. Don't go by yourself, you'll need someone to clutch in terror. I slept with the lights on!

Runs until Sat, Box Office: 01642-552663

Sue Heath

Stomp, York Grand Opera House

LIKE the Blues Brothers, Joseph and Tap Dogs, Stomp is one of those musical productions that's assumed a life of its own. Eleven years after debuting in London, the show is still playing to packed houses up and down the country. Audiences can't get enough of it.

People must have said they were mad when the creators first unveiled their idea. "What? You want to put on a stage show in which performers bang dustbin lids and rustle newspapers? You're nuts," would have been an understandable reaction.

There are still times when you can't believe what you're seeing, like the sight of four grown men in rubber gloves "playing" the metal kitchen sinks hanging from their necks like guitars. It is amazing what melodies you can extract from ordinary household objects. A box of matches becomes an orchestra, brooms produce a dusty symphony, and empty water coolers become improvised drums.

Pipes, sticks, sink plungers, pedal bins, brush pans, newspaper (both rolled up and open) and plastic bags are among other instruments employed. Occasionally, nothing more than a pair of hands is needed to clap out the rhythm.

The show is played straight through, without an interval, to deliver 100 minutes of high energy, toe-tapping, head-banging, foot-stomping, arm-aching musical action. By the end of it, the cast must be exhausted by the sheer physical effort of the intricately-choreographed production numbers. Those in the full house first night audience were exhausted just watching.

Until Saturday. Tickets 0870 606 3595.

Steve Pratt

Published: ??/??/2003