19:45, Tue 6th – Sat 10th May 2003 at ADC Theatre
Easter Week 2

One of well-loved Yorkshire playwright Alan Bennett’s most hilarious plays, this riotous farce is the perfect antidote to Cambridge exam term The play, set in the 1960s, is a witty and fast-paced period piece revolving around the lives and loves of the Wicksteed family, pillars of the Hove community. Dr Arthur Wicksteed, GP, intrepidly pushes at the frontiers of the accepted doctor-patient relationship, occasionally crashing through them to the displeasure of his long-suffering wife. Their hypochondriac son Dennis (or is it Trevor? Arthur seems entirely unsure) has just three months to live, and is suffering from Brett’s Palsy, a rare and incurable disease complicated by a nasty case of lockjaw. His tragic plight attracts the attentions of Felicity Rumpers, only daughter of one Lady Rumpers, recently widowed and about to be confronted by her own less than pristine past. Then there’s Arthur’s sister Connie, whose ambition in life is to achieve a big bust, and who is emphatically not a spinster, just unmarried. Besides, there’s always Canon Throbbing, the local vicar, ever ardent in his 10-year pursuit of Connie and that’s before she orders a pneumatic breast-enhancing appliance. Still, at least one day his attentions may be rewarded – and it will all make a cracking piece on Anglican Sexuality for the ‘Church Times’As assignations go awry, wires get well and truly crossed and the pneumatic breastrun amok, chaos reigns in Hove.