Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce tells the story of Susannah (Beth Cordingly) and Trevor (Ben Porter), a young couple on the brink of divorce, and the farcical situations that unfold as their friends and parents find themselves entrenched in the fight to save their marriage.

Taking place across a triad of bedrooms, we’re given intimate access to the lives of four oh-so-conventional couples as they scrap, bicker and cavort their way through a Saturday night. A former Doctor Who (Colin Baker) and an ex-Eastender (Natalie Cassidy) are just some of the familiar faces in this all star cast.  

A typically suburban example of Ayckbourn’s work, Bedroom Farce makes it easy to see why he has received criticism in the past for being too middle class in his writing. Every character is comfortable and conformist in this polite play about relationships, and poor Susannah is pitted as virtually unhinged for having a few insecurities and not brushing her hair.

Still, there are a lot of laughs, and the rest of the audience seem to find the whole performance seat-wettingly funny. Of course, this might be to do with the fact that on this particular night the Hall For Cornwall was full of middle aged, middle class couples rather than insecure young people with unbrushed hair.

Natalie Cassidy was amusing as the slightly simple Kate, and Louise Jameson and Colin Baker play Delia and Ernest, the companionably married older couple, brilliantly. And despite the fact that Ayckbourn’s subject matter is a little hackneyed and the conventions he employs a touch twee, Bedroom Farce manages to be wholly entertaining. A light hearted exploration of marriage in the suburbs, it shouldn’t be read as anything but. (Chelsey Flood)