STOURBRIDGE Town Hall will be playing host to a visiting theatre group from Australia and a choir from Swaziland next week.

The Nuworks Theatre Company, an amateur drama group from Melbourne, will be staging two plays at the Crown Centre venue on Tuesday September 30 as part of a two-week UK tour.

Stourbridge Theatre Company is hosting the evening of theatre which will see The Possible Dreams Theatre International Choir from Swaziland providing a musical backdrop to one of two plays being presented.

The first - Slavery, written and directed by David Dunn, highlights the attitudes and culture relating to England's slave trade in the late 1700s by recounting the fate of 142 captives who were thrown overboard as unwanted cargo during the return journey of slave trader ship Zong in 1783 as it sailed back to English shores.

While the second play - Snuffnuff's Emporium of Odds, Sods and Collectibles - centres on an old curiosity shop Professor Snuffnuff's Emporium and takes a light-hearted look at what might happen if famous book characters escaped from their novels and ran amok through the annals of literature.

Mr Darcy, Miss Haversham and Nicholas Nickleby are among the characters who put in an appearance.

Tickets for the evening, priced £7, are available from The French Deli, Coventry Street, Stourbridge; Dudley Council Plus, Castle Street, Dudley, on 01384 812812 or online from www.stourbridgetheatrecompany.org.uk