WHEN someone asked Susan Doran to "break a leg" in advance of a forthcoming Malvern Theatre Players and Melting Pot production, she was not expected to take the well-meant advice.

But she did!

This lead to a unavoidable postponement of "A Bunch of Amateurs" at The Coach House, Malvern Theatres, earlier this year.

Now Susan's leg is fine again and she is ready to be Dorothy Nettles in a thespian comedy, where "the Stratford Player' attempt to stage 'the definitive King Lear".

As you do.

A spokesman said: "Yes, we’re back! You couldn’t make it up.. In the very last run through of A Bunch of Amateurs (Malvern Theatre Players and Melting Pot) way way back in April, everything was going swimmingly. Costumes – tick, sound – tick, lighting – tick, props – tick, broken ankle – tick... our very own Susan Doran, in the penultimate scene in the play, playing Dorothy Nettles leading light of the Stratford Players, took a bit of a wrong turn and missed a step.

"It wasn’t quite ‘blues and twos’ to Worcester A&E, and our Sue was being very stoical, but it was clear something wasn’t quite right. And when the hospital staff found out she had broken her ankle during rehearsals well, the jokes just didn’t stop!"

The spokesman added: "So now, thoroughly mended and possibly even better than ever, Dorothy is ready once more to lead the Stratford Players to perform the definitive ‘Lear’, with a bit of help from Hollywood Superstar, Jefferson Steel. Unfortunately Jefferson thought his agent had sent him somewhere a little more prestigious and he’s unhappy – to say the least! – to be working with a Bunch of Amateurs! Come a see the hilarious results when sleepy Suffolk meets uptown LA."

Break a leg is a traditional greeting among thespians, to avert the evil eye by apparently asking for the opposite.

A Bunch of Amateurs runs from September 30 to October 5 at The Coach House, Malvern.

Tickets are available from the Malvern Theatres website and box office on 01684 892277