A 26-YEAR-OLD playwright from St Ives has written five plays this year and will see six of his works staged in three different British cities. Paul Richards, a writer and musician who is also the co-author of Almost Famous, The Hunts Post rock column, has

A 26-YEAR-OLD playwright from St Ives has written five plays this year and will see six of his works staged in three different British cities.

Paul Richards, a writer and musician who is also the co-author of Almost Famous, The Hunts Post rock column, has received acclaim in Edinburgh, Brighton and London.

His comedy, Frank's Aim is True, will be performed by the theatre group Get a Real Job Promotions at the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as in Peterborough, Cambridge and at the Lodestar Festival in Lode, East Cambridgeshire. Last year, his play, Growing Up with Martin, received three stars (out of five) at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The latest play, described as a comedy about musical obsession, centres on bewildered chip shop assistant Frank who believes he is Elvis Costello. Despite the television interviews and the concerts he conducts in his head, the rest of the world struggles to understand him, notably his uncle Stan, who himself is obsessed on a completely different level - with winning the prestigious Chip Shop of the Year contest.

Last Thursday, another of Paul's plays, Crackerjoke Writer, an alternative comedy about bad comedy, was performed at the Clerkenwell Theatre in London by theatre group KDC. In May, Bed - a comedy about one-night stands - had a week-long run at the Brighton Fringe Festival.

And if that's not enough, as well as playing at Strawberry Fair with his band, Under the Streetlamp, this month, two pieces were performed on stage: Number 12 and her Amazing Street Revolution, and An Ambulance Stuck in Traffic.

Paul, whose day job is new media content editor for St Ives-based Fonestarz, said: "I received my first rejection slip from Carlton TV in 1998 - I have four ringbinders full of rejection slips but then the early stuff just wasn't good enough.

"I am constantly working on new material. I have three plays on the go at the moment. Crackerjoke Writer and Bed were written last summer. Frank's Aim is True was written in January - and I've re-written it four times before it was ready for performance."

Paul, who writes Almost Famous under the name Richard Paul, has been writing plays since he was 17.

INFORMATION: Frank's Aim is True is at The Glass Onion in Peterborough on July 26; CB2 Restaurant, Norfolk Street, Cambridge, on July 28 and 29; at Understairs, The Apostolic, Edinburgh, from August 21 to 28 and at the Lodestar Festival on September 1.