Everyman Palace Cork

There are moments during this production of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1965 comedy when it is impossible to resist the suspicion that the entire play has been sacrificed to the potential of the second act.

These doubts arise when the first act has been survived; from the moment a taxi is called to the bed-sit shared by Ginny and her recent boyfriend Greg, the feeling is that the entire auditorium is longing for that taxi to arrive. At last it brings first the innocent Greg and then the worldly Ginny to the home of Philip and Sheila, believed by Greg to be Ginny’s parents to whom he wants to introduce himself and his honourable intentions. And wouldn’t you know it, the dashing Philip is Ginny’s former lover with whom she must now dispense.

Sheila, who hasn’t gone to church because it’s the third Sunday after Trinity, which means a visiting preacher, is left to deal with the unknown Greg.

If a four-hander as neat as this one can turn into a one-woman show then that woman is Fionnula Linehan, whose portrayal of the suburban English hostess adrift on a sea of polite incomprehension sparks the plot into hilarious life. Director Trevor Ryan keeps the necessary balance here as confusion gains momentum, for this early Ayckbourn is already giddy with the writer’s gleeful dissection of British reticence. Although in the first act nonchalance can be taken too far, Ian McGuirk, Linda Kent (wrong slip for that dress, and it shows) and Alf McCarthy make antic hay in the second. Here Jim Queally’s huge red-brick house wall with the tree-lined downs stretching into a happy haze beyond looms over rural suburbs illuminated by Paul Denby’s sunny rays. Wrong windows, and the much-quoted garden is evident only by what looks like a Clematis armandii wilting on the fence. But oh what larks!

Runs until April 7th