Peter Bowles

Peter Bowles drops out of Stop!...The Play

Peter Bowles has withdrawn from the upcoming production of Stop!...The Play, which runs at Trafalgar Studios next month.

Peter Bowles to star in new comedy Stop!...The Play

Peter Bowles is to star in the world premiere of a new comedy called Stop!...The Play.

How we made To The Manor Born

Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles, the stars of the classic BBC sitcom To The Manor Born recall Rolls-Royces, chilly location shoots - and an increasingly tubby beagle.

Everyone, from the writer Christopher William Hill down, seems to have had a whale of a time making this comedy set in the past but concerning a radio soap that takes place in 2008.

And you can see why. Two worlds are your oyster, and events in both of them are known. In 1962 you have all the events going on that happened then - reds under the bed, mainly - while the 2008 stuff that the characters in the soap imagine would be commonplace now (still with me?) provokes the usual knowing laughter that comes from knowing how wrong they got it.

Toss in rampant paranoia along the lines of 1984 (the book, not the year), a death or two and a first-rate cast (Peter Bowles, Cheryl Campbell and John Fortune) and you have something that should come to boil nicely over the next six weeks.