EVERY night Burglar Bill steals fish and chips and a cup of tea for his supper.

What happens one night when he helps himself to a nice big brown box with little holes in it is told in one of the children's shows coming to Ludlow Assembly Rooms this autumn.

Burglar Bill is a brand new musical version of the best-selling book by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

Directors Ian Sanders and Katy Secombe, daughter of the great Sir Harry, adapted it as a play for children aged three to eight. Apart from being fun to watch, Burglar Bill carries the important message that burglary is illegal and crime shouldn't pay.

The show is on tour and is due to visit Ludlow for two performances on November 17.

It is among a lively clutch of children's activities listed in the latest Kidzone! schedule, obtainable now from the Assembly Rooms box office.

Earlier in autumn will be October's three-day Feast of Words Festival for families and parents, with a special emphasis on moggies.

Painter and poet Edward Lear had a much-loved cat called Foss, who lived to a ripe old age and died just two months before his master.

Lear's best known creation is probably The Owl and the Pussy Cat and it will feature in a celebration of his life and work called My Uncle Arly on October 7.

Lear wrote a poem beginning: "O! My aged Uncle Arly! Sitting on a heap of Barley..."

The Assembly Rooms version will take the audience on what promises to be "an absurdly comic journey into the imaginative world of one of Britain's favourite writers".

The festival includes a show based on The Dark Forest, a trilogy by Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore set in a medieval world of hermits and wizards.

There will also be workshops based on a cat theme as well as a paw print trail.

Hallowe'en comes at the end of October, with a half term Ghoul School, including pumpkin lanterns, monster mobiles (not phones but the sort that dangle from the ceiling) and how to create "wicked wounds."