A Noel Coward show will mark the diamond jubilee season for a hardy group of actors.

The Saxlingham Players, based in Saxlingham Nethergate, near Norwich, will perform Blithe Spirit – a comedy in which novelist Charles Condomine is haunted by his first wife – at Saxlingham Nethergate Village Hall until Saturday.

'It is a production to be proud of. We have a very good cast and it is a lot of fun,' said the players president Ron Jeffery, adding that the players last performed the show 30 years ago.

The group's history goes back to the moment when Saxlingham Women's Institute invited men to join them to perform pantomimes and plays.

Over the past 60 seasons the players have performed more than 120 shows and their longest serving member is Oliver Cross, one of the founders of the group.

'We have done the whole gamut, everything from Poetry, Prose and Pints, which was quite literally prose and poetry with pints, right through to Shakespeare, via pantomimes, farces and murder mysteries,' said Mr Jeffery.

For the millennium they performed Twelfth Night at Rainthorpe Hall, and a decade later another major outdoor production followed, A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Old Hall, Saxlingham Nethergate.

The players will celebrate their 60th season with a barn dance on June 4 to coincide with the Queen's diamond jubilee celebrations.

Blithe Spirit is tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at 7.30pm. Tickets are �7 (�6 concessions). To book call 01508 499369 (9am-9pm) or buy tickets on the door. For more about the players visit www.saxlinghamplayers.org.uk

emma.knights@archant.co.uk