York Theatre Royal, Northern Broadsides

By J B Priestley.
Directed by Barrie Rutter.

J B Priestley’s heartily entertaining northern comedy is the perfect play for the remarkable Northern Broadsides, a company celebrated for its charisma, down-to-earth energy, and comic expertise.

Cleckleywyke, a town in the West Riding, 1908. The Helliwells, the Parkers and the Soppitts are highly respected pillars of their community, but not for much longer.

Married on the same day in the same chapel, when they gather to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversaries, they are horrified to discover that the vicar wasn’t licensed. Actually, they are not married at all. In fact, they’ve been living in sin for the last 25 years!

Watch with mounting glee as the pandemonium switches from horrified social embarrassment to the realisation that they’re free from the shackles of long, tedious marriages. Home truths are dealt, bullies get their retribution and the hen-pecked are hilariously and most satisfyingly liberated.