NANTWICH Players are about to exchange one steam train for another.

After this month's splendid production of The Railway Children, the company are ready to send John Buchan's Richard Hannay on the next train to Scotland.

For their first presentation of the New Year, the Players are staging Patrick Barlow's adaptation of the classic thriller The 39 Steps.

"Imagine Hitchcock's iconic film version translated to the stage," we are told. "Four actors play round 140 characters, with great comic timing and imaginative narration."

If four actors playing 140 characters isn't enough, the production is said to feature "sex appeal, fights, Scotland Yard, love, betrayal, car chases, silk stockings, French men, English women, sheep, murder..." And trains, surely.

The 39 Steps has the footloose Hannay on the run after a mysterious foreign woman turns up dead in his flat. Cue a desperate dash to Scotland, where our hero is pursued by sinister agents of an unknown power, while fighting to prove himself innocent of murder.

The show is at The Players' Theatre from February 10 to 18 at 7.45pm. Call 01270 537359.

Before that, stand by for the joining together by matrimony of the Ollerenshaws and the Greenhalghs, the two families in Mike Harding's laugh-a-minute comedy Fur Coat And No Knickers. There are stag night scandals, delinquent pensioners and an inflatable wedding guest in Harding's tale of the clash between the down-to-earth Ollerenshaw clan and the social climbing Geenhalghs. It's at The Rep from January 23 to 28. Telephone 01782 209784.