A PLAY set against the backdrop of the First World War will hit Richmond’s Georgian Theatre Royal on Friday, May 2.

Mikron Theatre Company has commission Troupers, a story about British entertainment on a downer and actor Lena Ashwell who finds herself with a theatre but no audience.

A passionate advocate of 'art for all' and determined to do her bit, she assembles a company and books a tour with a difference. Her Troupers won’t tread the boards of Old Blighty, but the muddy, bloody fields of France.

Marianne McNamara, Mikron’s artistic director, said: “By telling Lena Ashwell’s story we are telling the story of the place that the arts had, and still have, in a struggling society.

“We are really interested in having a central character who is female, at a point in history which is often told from a male perspective, and a story about those who entertain and enrich the lives of our service men and women and how that started out.”

Tickets cost between £7 and £20 and are available from the box office on 01748-823710. The show starts at 7.30pm.