THIS play centres round a village hall committee, initially seen organising the annual fete and, later on, during the event itself.

The characters are well drawn and, as such, are a gift for those performers who have the ability to create really believable personas.

In this production, directed by Richard Coleman, there were several people who did exactly that, and were a joy from start to finish: Trish Binding (Ellie Swift), Enid Rothwell (Mavis Partridge), Beverley Beck (Marjorie Organ) and especially Dawn Hollington (Gloria Pitt), who almost reduced me to tears in her later scenes as she coped with her own personal tragedy.

Kimberley Scott (Angela Brownlee), Gill Greaves (Pauline Morris) and Bob Johnson (Geoffrey Morris) also impressed, but I found Helen Kuster (Sally Martin) rather unconvincing as a Major’s wife.

In fact, I found the whole evening something of a curate’s egg, at times absolutely superb and at other times slow and static.

And I do wish that on the many occasions when one character began gossiping about another as soon as they had left the room someone had looked round at the door to make sure they really had gone – most of the time they were still on stage.