Dramatic Productions

From Ayckbourn's trilogy 'Damsels in Distress', Roleplay is a laugh out loud play with dark undertones, a vintage 'dinner-party from hell'.

A young well-to-do couple, living in a posh docklands apartment, have planned a civilised occasion where they hope to introduce their respective parents and also announce their engagement. The tense situation escalates with the arrival of two unexpected guests, a feisty lap-dancing gangster's moll and her burly gun-toting minder. What her parents (a bigoted northern stereotype and his dim twittering wife) and his mother (a toy-boy chasing lush) find when they arrive reveals that the bourgeois guests, under their respective veneers, are far more frightening than the gatecrashers.

Ayckbourn is a master at handling people divided by class, accent, habits and race and here we see each of his characters playing a role to escape reality with hilarious effect.