Not enough laughs to save this dated tale

There is some bittersweet nostalgia in the opening scenes of Alan Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves at the Theatre Royal, Bath this week but overall the play seems dated and the comedy fails to hit the high notes of some of Ayckbourn’s better known works.

- By Nancy Connolly

It is a 1970s domestic drama about two working class couples who meet over the sale of a disused, second hand Mini car in the garage of a claustrophobic, London suburb.

Audiences looking for some 1970s, ordinary, everyday nostalgia will enjoy the setting - a man working away in the garage while his wife and mother get on with their lives in the house, with the garage as an escape for the breadwinner.

But it is so dated, it is hard to imagine this play has stood the test of time, and the comedy does not see it through as it does in Ayckbourn’s other plays.

Dennis (Tom Richardson) is married to Vera (Holly Smith), a nervy apron-wearing housewife on the verge of a nervous breakdown. They are selling their Mini car as Vera is no longer able to drive.