REGARDING the review of "Silly Cow" at the Octagon, by Beverly Greenberg, entitled "Crying With Laughter".

This article should have read "Crying With Frustration"!

Eight of us regularly go to the Octagon, and regularly we end up being very frustrated.

My mother has difficulty with her hearing and has to use a hearing aid. When she does to the Octagon she uses a headset, which they provide, this then works in conjunction with the infra-red sound system to, and I quote "provides enhanced sound quality and amplification". Unfortunately this usually isn't the case.

It has now happened so many times that we have all decided it isn't worth going again. My mother and myself have voiced our concerns about this situation to the Octagon, but it has fallen on, dare I say it, deaf ears.

The last occasion was the performance of Silly Cow, the headset didn't work at all and two other people within the audience, who had headsets, had the same problem. Have you any suggestions on how we can get our complaint heard and taken seriously by the Octagon? All we want is to have a guarantee that one headset will work for the one performance we attend, and not be informed, that when the sound engineer checked the day after, it worked perfectly, in an empty theatre.

Nothing we have done or said has made a difference. Perhaps if other readers have experienced difficulties and they write in, maybe the Octagon will at last be able to hear, because that's all we want to be able to do.

Mrs Ann Hunt

Atherfield

Harwood

Bolton

Bolton Octagon executive director, John Blackmore said: "The infra-red system we have at the theatre enhances the sound for people who have medium difficulty hearing. It is of no use to people who are hard of hearing or deaf. They need an induction loop system which is completely different. We do though have sign language performances.

"The infra-red system we have is not 100 per cent reliable and you do get different reception from different seats in the theatre. We do have a policy of reviewing complaints and do try the head sets out on a regular basis.

"If Mrs Hunt will tell us when she is next due to visit we will test out the system from her seat for her before she arrives to make sure it works properly."