FOUR of the Canterbury Players’ Key actors occupy the stage in a revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1967 play, Relatively Speaking.

It’s great to see Damian McHugh tread the boards again after his broken ankle meant the play had to be postponed twice.

He does a good job as the naïve young man whose girlfriend . Ginny tells him Philip and Sheila are her parents when Philip is actually her sugar daddy rather than her daddy.

Keen to meet them, Greg arrives at Philip and Sheila’s house before Ginny does, causing confusion from the start.

The playwright cleverly depicts separate twosomes which slowly build up the misunderstandings.

I haven’t laughed so much in ages.

For me, the funniest scene is when young Greg approaches Philip believing him to be Ginny’s father and asks if he can get married. Unfortunately, Philip thinks he wants to marry his wife, Sheila and is positively apoplectic when Greg suggests she has had four other lovers.

It’s all very complicated and far fetched, but Jonathan Coupe and Diane Cornes as the older couple and Damian McHugh and Debbie Dickerson as the young ones have the audience in fits of laughter.

They are all equally good. Every performance is top rate and the interaction between the actors in perfect.

You could say that director, Ann Robinson, is a star though. After successfully directing When we are Married, she has again come up with a winner ensuring perfect timing and reactions to events by her cast.

The garden set designed by Terry and Norma Walker along with Gordon Wells, makes the perfect background for the confusing talk that goes on there. And how did the back stage staff manage to switch to it so quickly after the first scene featured a bed sit?

Relatively Speaking is one of Ayckbourn’s early plays but it shows how well he understands the concept of misunderstanding leading to comedy.

The surprise ending gets the biggest chuckle of the night.

It was worth waiting since April to see.

* Relatively Speaking was at Brook Road Methodist Church, Flixton until June 18. Telephone 0161 748 8403 for tickets. Star rating: * * * *