An ingenious set greets the audience at the opening of Alan Aychbourn’s award-winning play: the cross-section of a South-West London Victorian terraced house divided into three flats. The owner, Barbara, a fastidious, frosty, elegant spinster executive contentedly occupies the pristine, ordered, male-free ground-floor flat which we see in its entirety. Downstairs is the ceiling of the basement flat which Gilbert – a postman, handyman and bore who rents the flat from Barbara – is secretly painting … (come and find out!) Upstairs is a small section of the first-floor flat which Barbara is letting to Nikki, an old schoolfriend, and Nikki’s fiancé Hamish, despite the fact that Barbara and Hamish have taken an instant dislike to one another. Needless to say, the brief time for which these four occupy the house does not pass smoothly.
CAST
- Pam Nolan as Barbara
- Tracy Clapham as Nikki
- Bryn Thomas as Hamish
- Max Nettleton as Gilbert
