By Alan Ayckbourn.

LOVE HAS ITS UPS AND DOWNS, BUT THIS PLAY IS A WHOLE OTHER STOREY.

Barbara is resolutely single, having dedicated her life to her career as secretary to the powerful city executive Marcus. Her neat little world is as carefully and quietly organised as her neat little flat, with few distractions save the relentlessly cheerful Gilbert who lives downstairs. However, when an old school friend Nikki and her fiance Hamish rent the flat upstairs, her life is turned upside down and back to front. When Barbara meets Hamish, it's hate at first sight. Or is it?

This hit comedy is a witty look at love, whether we can do without it and more importantly, once we have it, how we will do almost anything to hang on to it. If you've ever loved and lost, loved and left or just loved and lusted then Things We Do for Love will be just your thing.

It's a brilliant comedy in which the audience is treated to simultaneous action in three separate apartments. As the hapless characters live up to the promise of the title, Ayckbourn combines pathos, farce and romance in an irresistible cocktail of ecstasy and embarrassment. A wondrous mix of domestic comedy and sexual tragedy, a raw, painful and uproarious evening.

Ayckbourn pierces through the characters' carapace with the precision of a brain surgeon.

"Easily his best play." Scarborough Evening News

"Gorgeously funny." The Times