It is not just the holidaymakers who have been making the most of the good weather, with the Westcountry's ice cream producers working round the clock to record massive sales increases.

Some of the biggest retailers in Devon and Cornwall have already sold up to two and half times the amount of ice cream they sold throughout July last year, to record huge profits and cushion the blow of months of bad weather, including a wash-out Easter.

The demand has been such that staff have been pulling extra shifts to make sure their delivery trucks are stocked and shop shelves are full, with one retailer in North Devon telling how he has been working 18-hour days to make the most of the increase in interest as a result of the sweltering heat.

Roskilly's, which is based between St Keverne and Coverack on the Lizard, have seen sales rise 150% this month. "We have sold about 50,000 litres so far in July," said Silke Roskilly, who works at the farm. "If you compare that to last July we sold 20,000 litres over the same two-week period.

"We are going back to what it used to be like five or six years ago. It is so desperately important this year for Cornwall. Everyone is breathing a great big sigh of relief."

Melanie Marsh, from Callestick Farm near Truro, said sales of their Cornish Dairy Ice Cream were up 71% year-on-year.

She said: "Staff are being drafted in from other areas of the business to do extra runs with the delivery vehicles. Where we would usually be just starting to wind things up for the start of the season as the children start breaking up it is all systems go and sales have leapt suddenly since the sun came out."

Somerset-based Yeo Valley has recorded a 26% increase in sales of the vanilla-flavoured ice cream compared with last year, whereas Langage Farm near Plymouth, has sold 15,000 litres so far in July compared to 6,500 last year.

Bodmin-based Kelly's, which has been selling ice creams at the Royal Cornwall Show for more than half a century, said it was producing record volumes of ice cream due to demand.

Brand manager Nina Lumsden said: "Staff are working an additional 50 hours a week now, including all day Friday, Saturday and Monday. They are maintaining stock and supply but the ice cream is selling as quickly as it is being made."

Neil Hocking, who is a partner in the family-run Hocking's in North Devon, said he is working 18-hour days just to get the ice cream out.

He said: "Last July we sold 6,000 litres, this year we have sold 10,000 litres already.

"We don't usually do much business while the children are at school but this year has been different. I usually work 14-hour days in the summer, but last week I did 18-hour days and I had my first day off yesterday.

"It's good for the whole area to have nice weather, it's nice for visitors.

"Last year when it poured down with rain it all the retailers were concerned."

David Cameron will once again head to Cornwall for his summer holiday this year, it emerged yesterday as MPs broke for recess.

It will be the fourth year in a row the Prime Minister and his family have spent part of the six-week parliamentary break in the Duchy.

While in Cornwall in 2010, Samantha, the Prime Minister's wife, gave birth to the couple's fourth child, Florence, who was born at Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. She was given the middle name Endellion – after St Endellion, the Cornish village close to where they have stayed.

The Camerons are also expected to head to Scotland, which comes ahead of the independence referendum north of the border next year. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is expected to travel to Spain and Labour leader Ed Miliband will holiday in France.

Geoff Greaves' favourite films, in no particular order:

Ordinary People: Oscar-winning directorial debut of Robert Redford.

Star Wars: The first, and in most people's eyes, the best of the franchise set in a galaxy far, far away...

Zulu: Powerful 1964 film telling the tale of the Battle of Rorke's Drift in which an unnumbered British Army fought an army of Zulu warriors.

Operation Daybreak: Tense war drama telling the true story of the assassination of a German general.

Diva: Stylish and memorable French thriller made in 1981.

Last of the Mohicans: Daniel Day-Lewis stars in a sprawling tale of frontier days.

Where Eagles Dare: 1969 all-star film which ran for nine weeks when Geoff worked in a cinema. "I became word perfect," he said.

The History Boys: Big-screen adaptation of Alan Bennett's critically acclaimed play.

Das Boot: Gripping German underwater drama released in 1981 about life on board a German U-boat during the Second World War.

Thelma and Louise: Road movie with a twist when two women decide to leave their boring lives behind.

Stories have beginnings, they have middles, but sometimes they simply don't have endings... It's a fact which most writers would not appreciate, but often when something starts, it will flourish and continue to evolve.

This might be the case concerning a story that was originated by Daphne du Maurier. Not a single tale penned by that great doyen of Cornish writers, but her entire body of work – indeed the whole du Maurier brand and heritage...

That, at least, is what her grandson is hoping. Because Ned Du Maurier Browning is now borrowing not only from his grandmother's fictional characters but also from his family's rich history, to tell a new story.

And he is doing it in a most unexpected form. Ned is reinventing the world-famous du Maurier name and all that it entails – not in movies or plays – but in the form of watches. In fact, so passionate is he about the kind of timepieces worn on wrists, that he has remortgaged his East Devon home and just about everything else he and his wife Marianna own in order to kickstart a company that sells the watches he designs.

Du Maurier Watches is a new name on the tick-tock block – it only has two products on the market at the moment and they've only been on sale since February – but both Ned and Marianna are determined that the famous surname will be revived in the guise of quality watches.

"The company is called Du Maurier Watches – the main hook being that my grandmother was Daphne du Maurier," shrugged Ned when I went to meet the couple in their home north of Axminster.

"But it's not all just about Daphne – we're taking the whole heritage of the du Maurier family name," Ned went on. "Daphne's father was Gerald du Maurier, the actor, who had a cigarette brand named after him – and his father was George du Maurier, who was the Punch cartoonist who also wrote the book Trilby, which is where the Svengali character comes from."

Ned has been passionate about watches since childhood. When I say passionate – I mean that he will regularly wear four or five different watches during a single day: "I just love the feel and look of a watch and will sometimes change my watch several times a day depending on what I'm doing," he told me. "I might start the day off with a nice leather strap watch because it's comfortable and easy to read, then go down the garden and put something a little bit more sporty on. It's a little bit more than a fascination."

Daphne du Maurier, as every reader will know, lived in Cornwall and was utterly in love with the coastal area around Fowey where she lived – most famously at Menabilly (which played the role of Manderlay in her novel Rebecca) and then at a smaller house near Polkerris just to the north.

Dame Daphne died in 1989 – and apart from all her famous books she did have a name for being a "frostily private recluse" – so did Ned see much of his famous grandmother? And, if so, was she cold and remote to him?

In answer, the young father of two daughters showed me some photographs taken of him as a boy sitting on his grandmother's knee: "These were taken down at Beuleigh Beach which is where my childhood was with her – not at Menabilly which was the inspiration for Manderlay. She lived in a house called Kilmarth just up the road – just up the hill from Par," explained Ned. "And that was where, from 1970 when I was born, to when she died in 1989, I spent my summer holidays.

"The house was a mini version of Menabilly, but it was huge to me – it had amazing gardens and little cricket pitch, because we were all keen cricketers. Pretty much every summer we'd go down for August and spend a couple of weeks at Kilmarth," Ned continued, obviously happy to relate golden childhood memories.

"Like the weather we've been having over the past couple of weeks – the memories I have were: beach every day. A beach which was only accessible through the back of a garden, down through a cornfield. You could only get there that way, or by boat, so we'd be the only three people down there. Then we'd go to the other beaches at Prid, which I think means Polridmouth, and Par.

"So the one-to-one time we used to have with her was every morning when she'd take the dogs down to Par Beach for a walk – the tide goes out a long long way there. Between my brothers and my sister, we'd take turns to go with Track, as we called her – that was her nickname. I don't know where that came from, but that's what we knew her as.

"So I'd go on a Monday, Rob would go Tuesday, Freddie would go on a Wednesday. Her car was tiny – she had a little old DAF which had forward and reverse, that was it," laughed Ned at the memory of those journeys with his grandmother's two West Highland terriers, Mac and Ken. "The dogs would go in the back and I'd go in the front – and Daphne would drive and sometimes let us lean over and steer down the hill.

"I wouldn't say she was aloof – she didn't seem old in as say 'granny-old'," replied Ned when I asked about her somewhat frosty reputation. "She was physically fit – very capable – did a lot of walking. She was never doddery, until her last year or so. She'd always come down to the beach and watch us play cricket in the mozzie- infested evenings. She used to love that as well."

Did she tell him and his siblings stories?

"Not so much. It was possibly a generation thing – at the house she lived in, all the kids were in one half of the house and my parents and her were in the other. So during the day and later evening we wouldn't see that much of her. We'd all come and say goodnight to her. In the mornings it was better – we would spend time with her and, if we were going down to the beach, that day she'd come. But I never saw her as being aloof.

"It was a bit like being in one of her books," Ned continued. "It was a big house and so quite scary. The big old basement had nine or ten rooms which were never used – there was even an old chapel down there with an altar and everything, which was terrifying. And all the other rooms had this real scary smell of damp – and we'd go down there occasionally and get terrified by my dad suddenly leaping out of a cupboard with a full face mask. They used to love the fact that we were so scared and my dad would play on that – it was a scary house with bats flying around. Magical but scary at the same time."

So what did Ned think his grandmother would make of the du Maurier watches?

"I think she'd love the whole idea. If she was alive today and seeing how the world had progressed, I think she'd be shocked generally – but I think she would be incredibly supportive and find it very exciting seeing characters she'd created coming to life in a watch. I feel extremely lucky to be able to do it – taking the creative route in a different direction now that the writing side seems to have dried up a bit."

Explaining the genesis of the idea, he said: "We were discussing the possibility of opening a watch shop in Lyme Regis which is just down the road – and stocking unusual brands which you couldn't buy on the high street," Ned replied. "There was a possibility of a production of Rebecca hitting Broadway in the States – and I started thinking about ways we could start to breathe a bit of new life into the du Maurier name.

"We thought: 'God – we could actually design a du Maurier watch – how cool would that be?' It could be about all the characters from the books and the other du Mauriers – all this amazing heritage, where you have a story behind each watch.

"I was working up in London so I had a three-hour commute twice a week – and I got my computer out and started obsessively searching anything to do with the watch industry. And then I started designing watches – there must be a thousand different designs going on inside my head.

"We initially wanted to use one of my grandmother's books or characters to form the basis of the first collection – and Rebecca is the most celebrated book with the Hitchcock film.

"We've taken Maxim de Winter as a character and Rebecca as a character (both from the novel) – we've taken everything we know about them and created a back-story. It's almost like taking a picture of Maxim and representing that as a watch," said Ned describing his company's first men's watch. "So we knew it had to be designed with that sort of Art Deco, Art Nouveau, 1930s/40s feel to it – but with a slight contemporary design.

"Rebecca was a bit more difficult because nobody really knows what she looks like – through the book it's all hearsay and idle gossip. We know she was absolutely beautiful and had a vicious tongue and was probably pretty awful, but we used our knowledge of that to create a Rebecca watch. Not what she would have worn necessarily, but something that embodies her. So it has to be very feminine and glitzy – it has mother-of-pearl and rose gold and stainless steel and full cut diamonds."

Du Maurier Watches now have two models on sale in limited editions of 300 (at £445 for the men's Maxim and £485 for the Rebecca) and half a dozen prototypes waiting to be manufactured by specialists in Switzerland.

"I do the design and we have a third party we deal with in Switzerland – we send the designs over and we to and fro for several months," explained Ned. "They come back to us with some of the technical aspects. The exciting bit is when you push the button to get a prototype made – then you get the handmade physical watch in your hand. It's an incredible experience because it can be soul-destroying if there's something wrong with the prototype and it's not quite right – or it is the Eureka moment!"

Ned and Marianna will be hoping for more Eureka moments. They have entered a highly competitive market – as Ned says: "You can buy a good watch from 50 quid to £500,000."

The couple are hoping their watches will capture the public's imagination. Certainly, they have been inspired by one of the greatest imaginations ever to dream in the Westcountry.

dumaurierwatches.com.

A man who loves old cinemas has added another to his collection after being unable to bear the thought of a crumbling Art Deco structure being sacrificed to the wrecker's ball.

Geoff Greaves has just signed the deal to purchase the Ritz in Penzance, his second venue in the town where his collection, which now encompasses a dozen cinemas, began.

As owner of the independent Merlin chain, which has kept cinema thriving on the high streets in small towns across the Westcountry, he said it would have been a tragedy if plans to turn the site into flats had gone ahead.

So, within weeks of setting foot behind the less-than- elegant facade of the cinema- turned-bingo hall-turned-community venue, he got out his chequebook.

"I know it looks dreadful from the outside," he conceded. "But inside there is a lovely old-fashioned Art Deco interior.

"It is tired, but I can see in my mind's eye what it will look like when we do it up and when we restore that wonderful Art Deco interior."

Mr Greaves said he hadn't really been thinking about expanding his empire, which stretches from Ilfracombe to Okehampton in Devon, as well as sites in Falmouth, Helston and Redruth in Cornwall. However, when alerted to the probable fate of the Ritz as a potential demolition site to make way for flats, he felt he had to do something.

"I knew we had to do something or it would have gone to development and if we hadn't bought it it would have been knocked down within six months and that would have been a tragedy."

Film fan Mr Greaves was a former manager of one of the UK's first multiplexes in the Home Counties when he decided to become a movie mogul in his right – but at the opposite end of the scale.

In 1980, he sold his house and bought the run-down and virtually bankrupt Savoy cinema on Causewayhead in Penzance. Five months later, he purchased the equally declining Royal in the town and the rest – as they say in the movies – is history.

Each of the cinemas in the chain are town-centre establishments which have been brought back to life and put at the heart of their communities thanks to Mr Greaves.

It is something of a labour of love, he would be the first to admit. "I don't see all of my job as work, it's almost like a hobby collecting these big buildings and preserving them," he said. "I have to say that it gives me great pleasure to be able to bring these buildings back to life. I just wish I could do it to them all."

Six park home residents in Cornwall have benefited from a pilot scheme aimed at cutting their fuel bills and helping them stay warm for winter. Cornwall Council and Community Energy Plus have joined forces to deliver the scheme which they say will cut fuel bills by up to 40%. The council has put £500,000 towards the scheme to part fund external wall, roof and floor insulation through its Green Cornwall Programme. Residents will be offered up to 50% of the costs, and access to an interest free loan.

Devon County Council have issued an apology to drivers over the poor works carried out on a number of roads. Bickington, Fremington and Instow have all suffered from roads melting or bleeding as a result of the specialist Fibredec surface which is supposed to provide improved resistance against potholes and cracks. Sub-contractor, Colas, who carried out the works on behalf of South West Highways, accepts the issues began with initial defective work carried out on the road back in May, the council said.

An 89-year-old woman was the victim of burglary after leaving her front door open due to the hot weather. A number of rings were stolen during the incident in Bradninch, Devon around lunchtime on July 8. The woman had confronted a man who was looking through a cupboard in the hallway of her house on West End Road. He then made excuses and left the house. A police spokesman said: "The victim had left the front door of her house open due to the hot weather."

Shoppers were forced to evacuate a large supermarket store after a fire was discovered. The Asda store in Newton Abbot, South Devon was closed for more than two hours on Thursday evening after smoke was seen coming from the plant room. Crews discovered a smoke-filled first-floor room, caused by a fire in the electrical plant room involving electrical contact breakers. Darren Ridout, manager at the store, said: "It was a textbook evacuation."

Near Looe, South East Cornwall

£450,000

This detached bungalow, Shallow Pool, was built in 1999 and is set in three-quarters of an acre sloping down to a river. It has a mooring for a small boat and a detached outbuilding with a double garage and workshop that could be converted to an annexe.

Agent: Bradleys, East Looe, 01503 264888, www.bradleys-estate-agents.co.uk

East Cornworthy, near Dartmouth

£775,000

Black Ness Cottage is a period property in South Devon with more than five acres of grounds. It has four double bedrooms and a detached barn/studio. The gardens wrap around the property and extend to a woodland area and a large paddock.

Agent: Marchand Petit, Kingsbridge, 01548 855593, www.marchandpetit.co.uk

Seaton, East Devon

£1,650 pcm

St Monica's is a contemporary five-bedroomed detached house with sea views, to let unfurnished from early October, with consideration for pets and children. The property has a large kitchen-dining room and underfloor heating on the ground floor, plus a double garage.

Agent: Stags Residential Lettings, Honiton, £1,650 per calendar month, 01404 42553, www.stags.co.uk.

A substantial period country residence in Cornwall is coming up for auction next month.

Lanoy House (pictured) in Coads Green, near Launceston, has been in the ownership of the same family for more than 100 years.

The sale provides a highly exciting renovation opportunity.

The five-bedroomed house itself needs work but has lots of period details such as original floor tiles and decorative cornicing.

There is also a set of traditional stone barns which are full of potential The property also has large gardens.

The auction guide price is £500,000 and the sale will take place at the Eagle House Hotel, Launceston, on August 22 at 3pm unless the house is sold beforehand.

The agent is D R Kivell and Partners.

For more details contact 01822 810810 or visit the website www.drkivellandpartners.co.uk

This weekend, six gardens in the beautiful riverside village of Dittisham, near Dartmouth (pictured above) will be open to the public to raise money for charity.

The six gardens range from traditional cottage plots to those with a more contemporary design. Several have glorious views over the Dart and surrounding countryside.

Cream teas will be available at Dittisham village hall. Admission to include all six gardens is £5 (children free) and the gardens are open from 2-6 pm today (July 20) and tomorrow. The money raised will go to the charities supported by the National Gardens Scheme. For more information on the scheme and its work visit www.ngs.org.uk

Confidence in the housing market has risen significantly over the past three months, according to the latest quarterly Halifax Housing Market Confidence tracker.

A total of 41% of people in the South West expect the average Westcountry house price to rise over the next 12 months, according to the research.

The survey of market sentiment shows a substantial increase in optimism in the past quarter. When surveyed in both December 2012 and March 2013, only 23% of people in the region expected prices to rise.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, comments: "Sentiment regarding the outlook for house prices has improved markedly."

A study from PrimeLocation shows 80% of prime property buyers say the number of bathrooms is a significant influence when it comes to buying a home. The typical buyer wants at least two bathrooms for every three bedrooms. The average number of bedrooms and bathrooms needed for a property to be considered "prime" is 4.5 bedrooms and three bathrooms.

Nearly a third of those polled would rule out a home if it had too few bathrooms. James Mackenzie from Strutt and Parker says: "Nowadays it is not uncommon for people to want washroom suites with jet showers, standalone bathtubs and in some cases spa rooms."

How fantastic to see Jane Campion directing new TV series Top of the Lake (BBC Two, Saturday).

The director of two of my favourite movies – The Piano and Angel at My Table – is the consumate storyteller.

With the great cast she has here (drawn from all over the world) and the magical, but disconcerting setting of New Zealand's South Island, she draws you into what is shaping up to be a tragic and disturbing tale.

Robin, played by Elisabeth Moss (from Mad Men) returns home reluctantly to the small town in the mountains where she grew up.

It is isolated, populated with strange people and, for Robin, holds dark and dangerous memories.

Robin works as a child protection officer in the big city and has managed to avoid coming back, but her mother is dying and here she is.

It isn't long before she is draw into a disturbing case involving a young girl, Tui, who – after disappearing – is seen trying to drown herself in the lake.

Robin soon discovers the reason for the 12-year-old's distress. She is pregnant.

Her brute of a father Matt (played by the brilliant British actor Peter Mullan) is non-plussed. Why should he care? She can get rid of it. He's more concerned that a bunch of hippy women have bought a parcel of land he felt was promised to him.

The plight of Tui is insignificant to this unreconstructed monster. And his two sons look like they're cut from the same cloth too.

This is an engrossing but disturbing drama. The suggestion of paedophilia is treated in a nonchalant way by Matt and his wife, obviously brutalised. This makes Robin's determination to get at the truth even stronger.

The landscape creates a mood that suits the story – strange and epic but suffocating and oppressive too.

There are obviously things happening here that viewers of the first episode won't grasp, but the clues are there – Robin's nervousness around her stepfather, the macho culture of the police, the suggestion of something distressing in Robin's past and the influence of the women, led by the charismatic GJ (Holly Hunter who starred in The Piano).

Fascinating and unnerving in a way we haven't really seen since David Lynch's Twin Peaks. I'm looking forward to the next instalment tonight.

After a slightly disappointing Luther episode last week – I was devastated by the shocking death of DS Justin Ripley (Warren Brown) on Tuesday, BBC One.

A vigilante, grieving after the death of his wife, is out for revenge on all those who have evaded justice.

He even arranges a little online public hanging for one paedophile and a shooting for two men who got away with rape and murder.

So far, so biblical.

But when it looks as if determined Justin is about to stop Tom (Elliot Cowan) in his tracks, the killer turns his gun on the officer.

I had noticed that Justin was wearing a white shirt minutes before the fatal shot (directors love them because the blood looks better. If you don't believe me, keep watching the screens); but I thought Justin was a keeper.

Mind you, other clues were there. Luther had invited him into his house for the first time, had called him his "mate" and told him that he loved him.

In TV drama terms, that's the equivalent of signing a death warrant... and if you don't believe me, check that out too.

Finally, a lovely half-hour this week spent in the company of ze French chef, monsieur Raymond Blanc.

Raymond Blanc: How To Cook Well (BBC Two, Tuesday) was, ow you say? Superbe, fantastique! He cooks like a genius, but delivers English idioms in an accent you could cut with a Sabatier.

Delicieuse!

Ministers have slashed the funding devolved to the Westcountry to spend on much-needed transport schemes.

The Department for Transport has decided to hold back around £20 million it was giving to Cornwall, Devon and Somerset for major local projects.

Council and business leaders in the region were yesterday bitterly disappointed, and feared the cash would be channelled to other parts of the country, despite the woeful transport system across the South West.

The coalition decided to reform transport spending by giving areas money, rather than a regional list being drawn up and bids submitted for a share of a Whitehall funding pot. Now ministers want to partially return to the old model, giving local transport bodies some cash and asking them to compete for the rest.

Devon and Somerset were in line for £40.6 million from 2015/16 to 2018/19, and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly £13.3 million. Now the confirmed allocations will see Devon and Somerset receive £27.1 million and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly get just £8.9 million.

Bert Biscoe, chairman of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Transport Board, said: "With thousands of kilometres of roads, millions of tourists, a rural economy that relies on unclassified rural roads, the fastest-growing rail network in the UK, an airport which is revolutionising Cornish connectivity and ports that have populated the oceans for millennia, it's very disappointing to see such a minimal investment in developing transport infrastructure to support our future economy.

He added: "We will of course make the very best of what we have been given."

The Devon and Somerset board consists of delegates from Devon and Somerset county councils, Plymouth City Council and Torbay Council, as well as the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for the two counties.

Tim Jones, chairman of the Devon and Somerset LEP, said: "It's hugely disappointing and there will be considerable frustration and anger. We were told we would have £40 million or thereabouts to spend, and the projects we wanted to do were 'must haves' rather than 'nice to haves'.

"And now we are being told it will be scaled back and will have to go through and expensive bidding process."

The cash was one element of around £12 billion being devolved to the regions following Lord Heseltine's local growth review. Transport Minster Norman Baker said the four-year allocations were one- third below the indicative numbers provided in January this year.

"This is within the range of scenarios that the department asked local boards to consider at that stage," he said.

Plymouth Pavilions, Thursday

It starts with the hefty strum of an acoustic guitar and a blast of brass, swiftly segueing into an irresistible, hip-swinging, Tex-mex melody and Raul Malo's warm voice crooning: "Here comes my happiness again, right back to where it should have been..."

Of course, that can only be the opening bars of Dance The Night Away, the infectious hit by The Mavericks that charmed UK music lovers and shot up the singles charts back in 1998.

That song will, naturally, take pride of place on the setlist when the recently reunited band make a welcome return to the Westcountry later this month. But there's a whole lot more history and substance to this post-punk outfit that emerged from Miami's indie scene nine years earlier, quickly making their mark in the States. They created a unique neo-traditional country sound that has been described as having innocence, intensity, and vintage influences in equal measure. With Cuban American singer Raul at the helm, they put ten albums in their back catalogue and secured a Grammy award before going their separate ways in 2004 to pursue other projects.

Fast forward to 2012 and they are back with a vengeance and a brand new LP – In Time – that is unmistakably Mavericks; it's heaving with big beefy songs like the driving Come Unto Me and the ska-fuelled Back In Your Arms Again.

"It's sort of fresh all over again. I think that is kind of what is making it fun. Time apart from each other and the band has renewed our perspective. Everyone is a little more chilled now, a bit mellower and a bit wiser," says Raul, who established himself as a solo artist and kept favourite Mavericks' songs alive in the interim.

"We appreciate the fact that not too many artists can walk away for ten years, then make a record and come back out on tour. To have that opportunity again and to make the kind of record we have is really kind of special. We are really enjoying it. We realise how special this moment is."

Princess Theatre, Torquay, tonight

Burlesque artiste Bettsie Bon Bon is a one-time Lloyds underwriter with a law degree, but the briefs that occupy her these days are of a rather more frivolous nature. Trained in hip-hop and street dance, she's part of the troupe promising an evening that is "all tease, no sleaze".

The show comes to Torquay for one night only direct from London's West End and is strictly for over-18s. Producer Michael Taylor describes it as "an all-new riotous romp into the bizarre world of burlesque and cutting-edge variety" from Royal Academy-trained bombshells.

"They slip into character as smoothly as they slip out of the most exotic couture costumes ever to grace the stage," he says.

The audience are invited to join in the spirit and dress in cabaret style.

Hall for Cornwall, Truro, Monday to Saturday

The fascinating story of a group of Northumberland miners who, inspired by an art appreciation class, become artists, is told in Lee Hall's The Pitmen Painters.

Lee – writer of Billy Elliot, Spoonface Steinberg and adapter of War Horse for the big screen – was captivated by this moving story rooted in the area where he grew up. In 1934, a group of Ashington miners hired a professor to teach an art appreciation class. Rapidly abandoning theory in favour of practice, the pitmen began to paint. Within a few years the most avant-garde artists became their friends and their work was acquired by prestigious collections; but every day they still worked down the mine. The Pitmen Painters is a marvellous marriage of art, class and politics told with great affection and humour.