Summer fun as open-air theatre returns to West Dean Gardens

Rumours by Neil Simon (the British version) will alternate with Come On Jeeves by P G Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. Seats will be allocated on arrival, and picnics beforehand are welcome.

Rumours will be on June 27, June 29, July 1, July 5, July 7 and July 9. Come On Jeeves will be on June 28, June 30, July 2, July 4, July 6 and July 8. Tickets £10.

Barbara MacWhirter is delighted to be directing Rumours, part of a double bill of comedy which she feels will be just right for current times.

“Most amateur companies really feel that they want to do comedies at the moment.

"We were at the end of the Covid restrictions but we've got the business of the war and the cost of living crisis and I think people are really very down about things again. We need to be putting on something that will lift people and I think this will.

“The Neil Simon was (company chairman) Peter Breskal’s suggestion. We always look at quite a few plays and they're all considered but I did know this particular play. I was in it in the year 2000 for the Funtington Players and just did before lockdown they did another production of it that I wasn't acting in but I was doing the sound so I do know it fairly well. It is not an easy one to stage. It has got an upstairs bedroom for a start!

“Neil Simon wrote it in 1988, I believe, to cheer himself up. He had a very volatile first marriage. He was married to his first wife for a number of years and she died tragically but they had a very volatile relationship.

"One argument ended with him being attacked by a veal chop! His plays are always about the war of the sexes. They are not easy comedy by any means. There is always a lot of uncomfortable stuff in them.

“We have set it in 1990. There are some bits that would grate with modern audiences. It's a little bit patronising towards women, the ‘little woman’ and so on. But it was one of his few plays that were adapted for an English audience. It is set in leafy suburbia just outside London.

“We have four couples arriving at a house for the tenth anniversary for their friends but something has happened. There has been a catastrophe. When the play opens they are stuck with this ghastly situation and when the others arrive, they are trying not to tell them what has happened.

“When they arrive, they face this dire situation. I would say that there is some farcical comedy but it is not quite farce. It is not dropping trousers and people coming in and out all the time. It is quite sophisticated comedy and I have really enjoyed working on it. I've got a lovely cast. Several of them are ex-professionals.”

Tickets from the Festival of Chichester.