Actors on target in this play of two halves

How the Other Half Loves ***
Churchill Theatre

CHIRPY and up-beat, Leitheatre have brought a strong understanding to the complexities of this early Alan Ayckbourn farce while playing for the full effect of its situational comedy.

It does make for something of a slow first scene, as the action is established simultaneously in the two living rooms of the Fosters and the Phillips while the two wives are trying to usher their husbands off to work.

Ruth McLaren is excellent as Fiona Foster - the snooty upper-middle-class wife of Frank, who Mike Paton has great fun in making seriously empty headed and forgetful.

Slightly less successful is Debra Barrie as Teresa Phillips, the Guardian-reading, middle-class wife of Bob. She is just a little too laboured in her characterisation, although Alistair May as Bob doesn't help. They would improve immensely if they sat back and enjoyed playing to the cliché of this uptight wife and philandering husband.

If there are a few laughs dropped, the complexities of the relationships between the two couples are firmly established. Frank is Bob's boss and, not to put too fine a point on it, Bob is bonking the boss's wife.

By the time the meat of the action takes place in the second scene, the cast have also done enough to ensure that the two sets, side by side on the stage, can be used to portray what happens on two subsequent evenings, when both couples invite the Featherstones round to dinner.

This is a tricky time trick to pull off, if classic Ayckbourn, and quite possibly the writer at his best.

At the centre of the stage, the working-class Featherstones, William - who is the newcomer to Frank's team at work - and Mary, are being wined and dined. Around them, two scenes are being played out simultaneously.

On one side of the stage, Frank and Fiona are treating them to the full force of an early Seventies dinner party. On the other, William's new colleague, Bob, and Teresa, are not so much throwing a party as going through a marital breakdown. It is an awesome scene to pull off, as the action switches back and forth.

It is the sort of coup which is worth waiting for while wading through a rather laborious set-up. And from this glorious complexity, the full farcical force of misunderstanding, marital infidelity and general mayhem can flow as Ayckbourn compounds his revelations over the rest of the play.

If the situational laughs are all there, this doesn't have the depths needed to bring the full force of the class comedy to the stage. And while Allison Naismith's costume department has done a fantastic job in digging out period Seventies dresses, not all the actors have got the social niceties of the time.

Edward Blake and Jennie Davidson are very strong as the Featherstones, however. They have not merely got right into their characters, but they sustain them superbly well, with Davidson being a particular joy to watch.

All told, an entertaining telling of a deceptively tricky play.