From Jane: This is the article that I held up from last week to run the feature about The Swan Theatre - is everyone confused now?!

... the clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders at our quaint buffoonery ...

The time came, I believed - when I commence the writing of my fifth column (thus making me into a fifth columnist; so beware) for the Amdram electronic magazine - to properly introduce myself. I am a healthy male of the genus strix theatricus - a Theatrical Owl - closely related to your own Tawny Owl, but more pretentious.
How do you do (you may shake my talon), my name is Jonah.
The revelation of my true identity in this fifth column, chronologically dislodged (as it has been by my special friend, Jane, the editor) to after publication of my sixth offering about the closure of the Swan Theatre, Worcester, is in fact most opportune, because I can now inform you that nothing could save that theatre under its present system of management; Worcester City Council had given itself the freedom to reassign the building's lease when it reverts to them without encumbrance. One hopes that the lease will soon be re-assigned to a competent management by amateur theatre people.

Now... IF we are going to become chums, there are one or two things about owls that you quackers will have to understand. We call you lot "quackers", by the way, because that's the sort of racket you make: not unlike a swarm of ducks with your constant chattering and squabbling, although I must advise you that a young duckling can be extremely tasty, which, in our opinion, gives ducks an advantage over human beings. Perhaps I should mention, in this context, that owls rarely interfere with Swans.

There are, however, some facts about owldom that even the ornithologists among quackers cannot begin to understand. They concern Knowledge and Communication. Now, pay attention because some of what I am about to impart may surprise you. The audible signals that owls make are not intended as means of conveying situations and ideologies, but are intended merely to provoke alertness when we are about the more frivolous but imperative aspects of our existence: hunting and procreating. We communicate all of our more important thoughts to each other telepathically and in English. Is that clear? And we do not begin life with a total absence of any sort of knowledge at all, as I believe is the case with you quackers. That is why you have to waste so many years at learning everything. No, owls pass facts and techniques genealogically from one generation to the next in an ever-increasing build-up of intellect, concept, ability... and, of course, Knowledge.

That's as much as you need to know about owls in genera, except that you must bear in mind that, whereas the average quacker can reach the age of twenty-five (years) without producing young, an owl is considered a failure if he or she does not become a parent by the age of one. Everything is relative, but that thought may serve to persuade you against adopting a condescending attitude to me when I tell you that I am six-years old. I live with my wife (Penny, who is also my mother, but my father - Wobble - had a nasty accident involving a sky-diver, so she was available) in among the ivy that grows thickly up the wall of the Granary Theatre in Malcaster. We strix theatricii, as our name suggests, always live near theatre buildings.

Here, we listen and - without being seen by the quackers (who are in any case far too wrapped up in themselves, and each other's bodies, to notice) - we watch all of the comings and goings, all of the machinations and manoeuvrings, all of the industry, commerce and creativity, in our particular theatre. Unobserved, we listen in to the conversations and we pass the information we glean from this eavesdropping to the owls who live on neighbouring theatres and we receive all the gossip from them. By these means, we build up a picture of everything that is taking place in every theatre throughout the island of Great Britain. That's how I knew so much about the goings on in Worcester. By the way, it has now been decided (the Swan's owl informs us) that one more production will be performed after the "Pinnoccio" run finishes and before the theatre closes. It's a play called "Seasons Greetings". Do you know it? Neither do I.

Some of you, of a more literary bent than others, may have encountered my illustrious grandfather, Oscar, who is now living out his more advanced years in a shelter for retired birds of prey. As a very young owl, Grandad Oscar met an incredibly old quacker who ordered all the other quackers about in theatres as himself, but wrote plays and stories, criticised theatre performances and drew cartoons, all under the pen-name "Jonah". Jonah and Grandad Oscar were sort of forced into one another's company after Grandad was assaulted by a landrover. Well... Jonah taught my grandfather how to work a word-processor (so that he could write an autobiographical account of the first year of his life, for which he allowed Jonah to draw some pictures), which - as you can see - is a talent that I have inherited. You will have guessed that I am named after Grandad's special friend.

So there you are... now you have no excuse for not knowing who is addressing you whenever you read Jonah's Jottings. You are being written for by an incredibly intelligent, experienced, talented, qualified and very well informed owl.

And alas, as we go to press, we learn that yet another theatre is on the point of closure: the Priestley Centre in Bradford. I am now becoming most concerned about this tendency and intend to give it a lot of attention in this column. Between us, we will discover what is causing this inexcusable loss of Theatre Owl habitat and - more importantly - we will suggest what can be done to stop it happening ever again.

Jonah was a very experience director, teacher and writer who sadly passed away in February 2006. He was also the author of the highly successful "Playmaker - The Craft of Directing Plays (The Way I Seen It)".