HER name is Lola, she is a showgirl, and she'll be strutting her stuff on the stage of Congleton's Daneside Theatre next week.

Congleton Amateur Youth Theatre will be recreating a time when "music and passion were always in fashion" as they present Copacabana, the musical by Barry Manilow.

Based on the Grammy Award-winning song, the show is a colourful spectacle with fantastic dance routines.

Lola La Mar, played by Jessica Smith, is a dancer who is launched on the road to stardom as a Copacabana girl by bartender Tony Starr, played by Keiran Wesley.

Infatuated by Lola's performance, however, the dastardly Rico (Oliver Winnington) whisks her away to the Tropicana nightclub in Havana, triggering a drama of love, jealousy and murder that engulfs all three.

Copacabana is at The Daneside Theatre from November 17 to 21. Telephone 01260 277502/271095.

Meanwhile, there's still time to catch Newcastle Players' production of Noises Off, the sublime play-within-a-play by Michael Frayn.

While a touring company struggle to perform the sex romp Nothing On, fumbling lines and missing cues, the real action takes place offstage, where the cast are at each other's throats.

Behind the scenes, the plays are involved in adulterous affairs, panic attacks, hissy fits, heavy drinking and even violence. Noises Off is at the Rep tonight and tomorrow at 7.30pm. Telephone 07940 933488.