A frustrated drama group is desperate for male actors to join its latest production - but has been gagged from revealing the name of the play.

The Sackville Players, based in Hove, will stage the thriller in late April or early May but the play's copyright-holders have said it cannot name the production while it is still being performed professionally in London's West End.

The group wants three male actors aged between 30 and 50, or who look that age, for the mystery production.

Director Stuart Jones has designed posters for the play but cannot display them until nearer the date and when the production in the capital has closed.

Mr Jones said: "I can't give the name of the play, my hands are tied.

"I worked so hard on my posters - they took me about two weeks to do.

"I took them to the group to show them and was told I couldn't put them up because of the agreement. I was stunned. It's really frustrating."

A spokesman for Samuel French Ltd, which organises the licensing and payment of royalties to playwrights, said: "The play in question is on in the West End and the agent may have said they didn't want it advertised anywhere else."

Commercial copyright laws are not the only restrictions to have dogged British theatre and its performers.

In 1543, Parliament banned the interpretation of the Bible on all public stages.

In Shakespeare's time, a play had to be approved by the ruling monarch's censor, the master of revels.

Plays considered offensive in any way could be banned and those involved sent to jail.

The most strict form of censorship, which existed until 1968, was the Theatre Licensing Act of 1737.

This gave the power of censorship over plays to the Lord Chamberlain through his appointee, the examiner of plays.

Popular plays including Look Back In Anger, A Taste of Honey, Saturday Night And Sunday Morning and Alfie were amended by the censor.

The musical Hair, featuring many of the cast naked, premiered in the West End on the day the censorship law was abolished in September 1968.

The Bexhill Light Operatic and Dramatic Society pulled its own proposed staging of Showboat at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, in 2002 because of fears white actors "blacking up" would offend ethnic communities.

The Sackville Players' mystery play will be performed at Hove Park Upper School, Nevill Road, Hove, for three nights.

Anyone who wants to audition should call 01273 271856.