The curtain fell for one of the longest serving employees at the Oxford Playhouse this week, as Jonathan Nash and his dog, Tilly, pictured, took their final bow.

Jonathan has been the senior front of house manager since the Oxford Playhouse reopened in 1991, having worked for the theatre for a short period before it shut in 1987.

He marched into the theatre shortly before it was due to reopen and announced to the theatre directors that they would have to employ him again so that he could finish the work he had started before the theatre closed.

They were so impressed they took him on and have not regretted this decision, though there are some who wish Tilly had not guarded his office with such single-minded canine determination.

Jonathan has left Oxford to take up a managerial appointment with Barclays Bank Training Centre at Milton Keynes.

He said: "I am sorry to be leaving Oxford, especially at this time of the year, as I loved the panto season."