A BRAND new season of headline drama launches at Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts this autumn.

Here are six of the best plays to look forward to...

1. The ultimate theatrical dining experience The Wedding Reception returns to the Beacon Café from September 13 to 15. This highly improvised comedy includes a sit-down meal and features four actors playing nine characters in a whirlwind two-hour show.

2. Apollo Theatre Company and Spike Milligan Productions bring the timeless radio comedy The Goon Show to the stage for the first time from September 25 to 26. With its bizarre characters, fantastical plots and hilarious running jokes, The Goon Show captured the imagination of the British public in the 1950s and made household names of its three main stars Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe.

3. Roundabout, the unique and intimate pop-up theatre experience returns with a new location from September 28 to 30 as Lighthouse partners for the first time with Arts by the Sea Festival. The Roundabout tent will be situated outside Pavilion Dance in Bournemouth where it will host five plays a Coastal Comedy event with three professional stand ups and a comedy club for kids.

4. You’ll need to move quickly if you want to get tickets for the West-End smash-hit The Play That Goes Wrong from October 1 to 6. Back by phenomenal demand after its sell-out week at Lighthouse last year, this is another chance to catch the brilliantly funny comedy about the accident-prone thespians of the Cornley Polytechnic Society as they put on a production of a 1920s murder mystery.

5. In a sinister labyrinth of betrayal and revenge, The Nightmare Room, from November 1 to 3, is a contemporary thriller telling the tale of two women, one locked room and a bottle of poison. Helen regains consciousness, bound and blindfolded in a locked room. Her captor is her best friend Catherine. A deadly game of Russian roulette ensues, but the game – like the room – is far from what it seems ...

6. Following a critically acclaimed tour and London run, Richard Twyman’s vital production of Othello is brought to Lighthouse from November 20 to 24 by English Touring Theatre in a co-production with Oxford Playhouse and Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory. One of Shakespeare's most startlingly contemporary plays, Othello is a masterful depiction of a life torn apart by prejudice.

Tickets for all events are on sale now at the Lighthouse ticket office. Call 01202 280000 or book online at lighthousepoole.co.uk