WHILE we may all have been basking in a mini-heatwave this week, over at the Mercury Theatre they've been thinking about autumn and winter already.

That's because the new season at the Colchester theatre was announced this week and flicking through the programme, it looks like there's going to be some pretty hot stuff coming up.

And no where more so than a new 'saucy' adaptation of Shakespeare’s comic battle of the sexes Much Ado About Nothing.

It marks a welcome return for the Bard at the Mercury following artistic director Daniel Buckroyd's stunning production of Macbeth in 2014.

Daniel says: "This fast-paced youthful production provides an exciting start to our new season. Pia will be bringing an accessible, contemporary flavour to this much-loved romantic comedy.”

Daniel himself returns to the director's chair for the rip snorter of a musical that is Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

Audiences will be transported back to Victorian London in a razor-sharp new co-production between the Mercury Theatre and Derby Theatre.

Daniel adds: “Sweeney Todd is arguably the most brilliant - and certainly the most edge-of-the seat - musical of the last 50 years and Sara Perks has designed a stunning set for this production.”

Rounding off the homegrown shows will be the Mercury Theatre pantomime, which this year is Dick Whittington.

Mercury panto stars Dale Superville, Antony Stuart-Hicks and Ignatius Anthony are back to tell the rags-to-riches tale of Dick Whittington, the Essex boy who heads to London to find out if the streets are paved with gold.

But that's just half the story because the Mercury has once again programmed in a whole host of hot new visiting shows as well including the multi award-winning West End smash-hit comedy, The Play That Goes Wrong.

Described as Fawlty Towers meets Noises Off it really is going to life the January blues as the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society put on a 1920s murder mystery, which, as the title suggests, goes a little bit wrong.

More laughs are to be had with the Mercury playing host to some of the Colchester Comedy Festival acts this year.

That includes Marcus Brigstocke, Miles Jupp and Rich Hall as well as a number o heats for the Colchester New Comedian of the Year.

There will also be plenty of other star names taking to the Mercury stage with TV presenter Joe Swift in A Man About the Garden and Dad’s Army star Ian Lavender in Don’t Tell Him Pike!

Other highlights include BalletBoyz, back with their new show, Life, and plenty of half-term family fun in the Mercury's Studio theatre with The Girl and The Giraffe and Curious.

In fact the Studio has a cracking line-up of great theatre including The Man Who Would Be King, based on the Rudyard Kipling story, and Cathy, inspired by the Ken Loach film Cathy Come Home.

The Mercury always prides itself on a good music line-up and they won't be letting audiences down with The Johnny Cash Roadshow, Jackson: Live in Concert, Quartet in the Dark, Islands in the Stream: The Music of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, and Colchester Military Wives Choir.

And there will be more local talent on show with MonologueSlam UK 2016, Still I Rise, and the Colchester Operatic Society who following their junior edition September show of Carousel, will be presenting their production of Jekyll and Hyde.

Tickets are now on sale and for more information visit www.mercurytheatre.co.uk or call 01206 573948.