THE LEMON TABLE

IAN ‘emperor Palpatine’ McDiarmid (right) and director Michael ‘Frozen’ Grandage team up for a stage adaptation of two yarns, each a meditation on getting older, from Julian Barnes’s collection of short stories. One is about an obsessive classical concertgoer; the other about the Finnish composer sibelius, working on his eighth symphony.

■ AT SALISBURY Playhouse (01722 320333, wiltshirecreative.co.uk) until october 23, then touring to Sheffield, Guildford, Manchester and Malvern.