Alan Ayckbourn has never tired of the puzzle of playwriting, setting plays together and showing differing sides of the interaction.  He will set himself intricate tasks which may also be complex for the actors to play.  The Norman Conquests (1973) were in three parts and we saw the same event from three differing perspectives.  In House and Garden (1999) seen at the National Theatre in two different theatres in 2000, simultaneous events played at the same time and actors ran between theatres to make their entrance.  

Here at the riverside antique watermill in Sonning, Berkshire is one of Ayckbourn’s earliest plays How the Other Half Loves to feature parallel events happening on stage simultaneously.  The set by Michael Holt reflects two dining room/living rooms where the cast of six play as if they can only see people in the one house.  Telephones which sit side by side, one a 1960s Trim-phone and the other more conventional, are used to phone the other house. It sounds complicated but the excellent direction by Robin Herford is such that you will understand who belongs where and why quite quickly. 

We open in the house of Frank Foster (Stuart Fox) who owns the company where all the men work.  Fiona (Julia Hills) his much younger wife with redhead curls has erred twice, once by forgetting their wedding anniversary the day before and by staying out to the early hours without her husband. Facing a similar predicament but without a forgotten wedding anniversary is Bob Phillips (Damien Matthews) whose wife Theresa (Ruth Gibson) is coping with unseen baby Ben on her own. To cover up, Bob tells Theresa he was out late comforting his heretofore dull workmate William Featherstone (Ben Porter) about Ben’s wife’s suspected infidelity.