AN OTLEY-BASED writer will see two of his comedies performed in Leeds next month.

Neil Rathmell’s It’s A Miracle and The Colin Atkins Story will form a double bill at the Carriageworks Theatre from Wednesday, July 4 to Saturday, July 7.

Mr Rathmell is hoping to repeat the success he enjoyed last year when his play Unspoken - about a man and his stammer - enjoyed five sell-out performances at the same venue.

That play was, like the the two forthcoming Yorkshire-set comedies, also produced by Leeds Arts Centre.

It’s A Miracle, a new play, takes place in the fictional town of Eckerslyke, where the revelation of a vision by two young children leads the local priest to imagine his parish becoming a rival to Lourdes as a place of popular pilgrimage.

The Colin Atkins Story, meanwhile, is a dramatic reconstruction of the day in 1957 when ‘the first British teenager’ came into existence at the West Riding home of Mr and Mrs Atkins, changing forever their previously uneventful lives.

Mr Rathmell grew up in Yorkshire and says he’s delighted to be back after a long stay in Shropshire where he was a teacher, education adviser and youth arts centre director.

He said: “Shropshire is a lovely county but somehow it never felt like home. Otley, where I live now, is lovely too and the Yorkshire Dales are more than a match for the ‘blue remembered hills’ of A Shropshire Lad.

“It also has Leeds, the city of my youth when I was growing up in Horsforth.

“Shropshire has a lot of pretty market towns and villages, but it doesn’t have a single city.

“Coming back to Leeds has already given me new opportunities, not least the opportunity to write and direct for Leeds Arts Centre.”

An author as well as a playwright, Mr Rathmell’s first novel, The Old School, was published by Faber & Faber while his short stories have appeared in literary magazines in the UK and Ireland.

His next project will take him to India where he will write a play about gender issues in the country.

Students at Punjabi University, Patiala, are researching the subject for him and, as soon as his current production is finished, he will start work on a script to take with him for a residency at the university.

That project will conclude with a performance in Spring, 2019.

Tickets for the It’s A Miracle and The Colin Atkins Story double bill, which starts at 7.45pm each evening, cost £13.25, concessions £10.50. They can be booked by calling (0113) 376 0318.