SPRING/ SUMMER 04, BATH: AN extraordinary double bill launches the Spring into Summer season at Bath Theatre Royal, beginning next month.

It is a return visit for both productions. The Reduced Shakespeare Company has entertained with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) at least twice before and The Vagina Monologues has been to Bath once and has been touring neighbouring venues in recent months.

The minimalist Shakespeare event takes up the first half of the bill and The Vagina Monologues begins at 9.15pm, each evening.

The Shakespeare company members are American and use their native gift of cutting to the chase to present all 37 plays and 154 sonnets in 97 minutes.

Anne Charleston, known to millions as Madge in Neighbours, TV presenter Sarah Greene and musician Andrea Oliver present Eve Ensler's groundbreaking collection of essays on the female situation. Initially shocking, they are also funny, tender, desperately sad and poignant.

The season also includes Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, transferring from the Watermill Theatre at Newbury, a new dramatisation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, and Boy George's portrait of the New Romantics era, Taboo, starring Julian Clary.

Among the more traditional offerings are Shakespeare's Othello, Somerset Maugham's marital comedy The Constant Wife, with Liza Goddard, Susan Penhaligon and Steven Pinder and a first visit by the Royal New Zealand Ballet making their debut in Britain with Romeo and Juliet.

The legendary Joan Collins makes a return visit to Bath after three years, in Alan Melville's comedy Full Circle.

There is also a host of tempting one-night dates including jazz giants Humphrey Lyttleton and Acker Bilk.