After The Disaster, We Bounce Back With A Superb Ayckbourn Play

“If I Were You”, by Alan Ayckbourn

We finally had to admit defeat and abandon “Midsummer Mink”. The difficulties just seemed to escalate, and the more we tried to hang on, the more problems surfaced.  Finally we felt that we had to put the play permanently on the “back burner” and move on!

What we have moved on to is a superbly written modern comedy – Alan Ayckbourn’s 70th play which has some very modern and serious themes in amongst the inevitable laughs.

We hope that everyone will forgive the glitch in our programme and we aim now to reward our loyal audience with a well worth watching performance of a great play.

Please come and see it – or join the group and help out – we are really keen to welcome new members in whatever capacity!

Call the box office number to enquire about tickets – we will ring you back, and we might even be able to deliver locally by arrangement.

CALL 01278 795619 and leave a message with:

• Your Telephone number
• Your name
• How many tickets you would like
• Which night (18th or 19th May).

About the Play

“If I Were You” is Alan Ayckborn’s 70th Play.  It is typical of his style in that it combines blissfully funny comedy with some more real sad and hard hitting elements displaying human nature warts and all.

The play is set in the separate areas of the Rodales’ home including their kitchen, sitting room and bedroom. These areas also double as kitchen, bedroom and lounge showrooms in the Furniture Warehouse where Mal Rodale and his son in law Dean work.

About the Play

Mal and Jill Rodale’s marriage is on the rocks. Neglected wife Jill is bored and frumpy; Mal, her bully of a husband, adores his married daughter and is hated by his schoolboy son. Because he is the manager of a Furniture warehouse, by a typical Ayckbourn device events at work in the bedding, kitchen and lounge departments can be intercut with crises at home in the lounge, kitchen and bedroom.

Mal, a rather aggressive manager at a home-fittings store with little empathy for his staff or customers, is having an affair largely conducted during his lunch-breaks. Jill, a house-wife, who has not worked for 15 years and patently regrets it, is aware of Mal’s infidelity. When their daughter Chrissie comes to visit, Jill realises Chrissie is being physically abused by her husband Dean, who works with Mal. Meanwhile, the Rodale’s son Sam, is keen on acting and wants to appear in a Shakespearean production. Jill supports Sam despite clear opposition from Mal, who believes acting is not for men and doubts his son’s sexuality. At the end of the day, Mal and Jill go to bed.

Settling down to sleep at the end of a dreadful day, Jill mutters: “God help us”. This God presumably does and, next morning, she wakes up in Mal’s body and he in hers. While Mal’s world falls apart, Jill keeps control and insists they must maintain a façade. This is not as easy as it sounds and Sam is soon confused by his parents’ very odd behaviour. Jill goes to work and proves a far more effective manager than Mal, solving many of the problems encountered by Mal the previous day. At home, Mal – struggling with every aspect of being a woman – meets Chrissie, who reveals Dean’s abusive tendencies. He is also moved to tears when Sam performs a speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream for him. So much so that when Dean returns and as usual boorishly interrupts, Mal punches Dean. Sam bonds with Mal when his ‘father’ (actually Jill) although he is convinced his family have been replaced by aliens.

Mal and Jill retire to bed. As they doze off they find their personalities have been swapped back again. The play ends as they fall asleep, realising that what they have experienced in the preceding 24 hours has changed their lives and things will never be the same.

Stage 2 would love to see all the members of our wonderful audience, especially after our last production (Midsummer Mink) had to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We aim to make this play twice as good to make up for the loss of the last one!