JUST six members of Riding Mill Drama Club will take to the stage for their latest production.

The contracted cast will perform Alan Ayckbourn’s How The Other Half Loves in a three-night run at Riding Mill Parish Hall next week.

The play tracks the relationships of three couples, the Fosters, the Phillips and the Featherstones, and it follows the misunderstandings caused by two of the six characters having an affair and covering their tracks using an innocent third party.

Set in 1969, the action is performed over a single set, which represents two separate but overlapping living rooms.

Directed by villager Carole Smith, the performance will star Carole’s husband, Mike Smith, along with Kris Andersen, Eileen Davidson, Shaun Fenwick, Gaia Hudson and Angela Routledge.

“The club has performed this before, but it must be almost 30 years ago,” said Carole.

“This type of comedy is always popular with the audience, but the fact that the action crosses from one house to another on the same stage is sometimes a hard concept to get across. So from the very first scene, we have to be careful to spell it out, so the audience gets it.”

Performances take place between Thursday, November 26 and Saturday, November 28, and it is a chance to see Carole’s husband, Mike, on stage before his commitment with a special Royal Shakespeare Company production truly kicks in.

The former teacher at Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School will take to the stage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of a special project which will tour the country next year to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

The Dream 2016 project will combine RSC professionals with amateur actors for performances across the UK.

Mike is one of six members of The People’s Theatre in Newcastle who have been cast as the play’s Athenian tradesmen, with Mike taking on the role of the tailor, Starveling.

He and his People’s Theatre colleagues will perform with the RSC on seven dates during March in Newcastle, before the production heads to Stratford for two performances on June 20 and 21.

“It’s very exciting to be part of and I’m part of the big rehearsal the day after the Riding Mill play finishes,” explained Mike.

“What is really nice is my late aunt, Pamela Leatherland, performed this in Stratford as part of a Shakespeare Festival back in 1947, so I’m now doing what she did all those years ago.”

Ticket inquiries for How The Other Half Loves should be directed to Anne Lawrence on (01434) 682351.