Ilkley-based Upstagers theatre company’s production of West Side Story starts a five-show run at the Alhambra from Wednesday.

Leeds College of Art graduate Maddy Ayres, 19, who is off to university in September to study fashion and design, has designed the girls’ dresses and colour co-ordinated the costumes of the Jets and the Sharks, the rival New York street gangs – based on the Montagues and Capulets in Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet.

A vital part of her brief was the look of the designs and fabrics of the costumes worn by young and energetic dancers.

The cast includes the dancer Daniel Williams who, with his partner, won the North East Ballroom Dance Championship in Scarborough this year.

West Side Story is on from Wednesday to next Saturday, starting at 7.30pm. There is a 2.30pm matinee on the Saturday afternoon. The booking office number is (01274) 432000.

Tonight is the final opportunity to see Bradford-based theatrical group Drama Unlimited’s production of Alan Bennett’s play Habeas Corpus.

Set in Lytham St Annes in 1973, this sexy comedy is not really suitable for young children, which makes you wonder at the location – Haworth’s West Lane Baptist Centre.

Bennett would greatly enjoy the irony of that.

On Friday, July 23, Bradford Playhouse is offering a night of French music made famous by such as Edith Piaf, Jacques Prévert (he wrote the song Autumn Leaves), Léo Ferré and Jacques Brel.

Wait a minute, wasn’t the raspy-voiced Brel, poet of the cabaret chanson, born a Belgian – like Audrey Hepburn, Hercule Poirot and Tin Tin?

He was, but Brel was brill at songwriting in both French and Flemish; besides, he died in France in 1973.

Maggi Stratford and Jack Glover sing and play – accordion and piano – songs of love, regret, no regret and melancholy.

Tickets are £10 and £7 concessions. The box office number is (01274) 820666.