AWARD-WINNING comedy Horse Country will come to the Hartlepool stage next month.

Voted the finest play of the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it is an absurd and hysterical take on late-20th Century American culture by one of New York's leading new writers, C J Hopkins.

The play centres on the increasingly witty and bizarre banter between two seasoned comedy pros who discuss issues such as consumerism, behaviour, values and beliefs.

Horse Country is touring Britain for a limited period before starting a six-week run at London's Riverside Studios.

The play's visit to Hartlepool is the only opportunity to see it in the North-East and it features the original cast which entertained audiences in Edinburgh.

They will appear at Hartlepool's Town Hall Theatre on Friday, February 7, at 7.30pm. Tickets, costing £7 and £6 concessions, are available by calling (01429) 890000.