Brian Freeland, a playwright and speaker with a career spanning more than 50 years, will be at the Poly for a double bill on Friday.

An Evening with Brian Freeland will include two pieces, The View from the Wings and George Bernard Shaw: Playing the Clown.

The View from the Wings is a sideways look at theatrical productions from the stage manager’s point of view.

By its very nature, live theatre is unpredictable, you can never know what might happen next. After almost sixty years experience of theatre in Britain and abroad, including three residencies in the Middle East, eight tours of the Indian sub-continent, and two round the world trips, Brian remembers some of the occasions when it wasn’t alright on the night.

George Bernard Shaw: Playing the Clown had its world premiere at the 2013 Penzance Literary Festival. It has since been seen in Scotland, France and Belfast, and is currently on its eighth tour of the south-west.

Brian decided on a theatre career after seeing Peter O’Toole in a production of Shaw’s play Man and Superman at the Bristol Old Vic in 1957. He went on to work with Peter in a production of Waiting For Godot, and to be involved in many plays by, and about, the writer. This piece is Brian’s homage to Shaw; a quick canter through the career, the writings and the complicated love life of 'Britain’s second-greatest playwright, all told - as Shaw himself so often told it - with a whimsical sense of humour.

Brian Freeland will be at the Poly on November 3 at 7.30pm, and tickets are available from thepoly.org