Fun spin with Ayckbourn twists

This play promises audiences a wild time of confusion, misunderstanding and intrigue, Ron Cerabona writes

_{Ross Walker and Laine Hart star in Canberra Repertory Society's production of Alan Ayckbourn's 2001 play FlatSpin.}

Geoffrey Borny describes Canberra Repertory Society's first production for 2010 as "a cross between Bridget Jones's Diary and Spooks".

Borny is directing Alan Ayckbourn's 2001 play FlatSpin, which was originally part of a trilogy of plays, Damsel's in Distress, which Ayckbourn wrote for his repertory company in the Yorkshire coastal town of Scarborough. "They're completely separate plays all written for the same set," Borny says.

Although each also has a female protagonist and shares the same actors, the three plays (the others are GamePlan and RolePlay) are not otherwise linked.

FlatSpin works perfectly well on its own, Borny says, as "a comedy thriller - and it's very much both of these" (Ayckbourn himself described it as a "Hitchcockian thriller"). At its centre, Borny says, FlatSpin is about illusion, or magic. "One of the characters palms something, a cork, and says, 'Now you see it, now you don't'...everything happens with a twist to it and nothing is what it seems."

The play is set in a London Docklands flat which is arid and unoccupied. Unemployed actress Rosie (played by Lainie Hart) is brought in to be the cleaner and, while she's working, the doorbell rings and Sam (Ross Walker) introduces himself as a neighbour.
She's been desperate for a man so it isn't altogether surprising, at least from her end, when they take an immediate fancy to each other.
Rosie pretends that she is the owner of the flat. "They arrange to have a meal together - he's going to cook some gnocchi for her - but they never quite get round to it because they're both randy as hell," Borny says gleefully.

"They're about to bonk on the coffee table when there comes a ring on the doorbell."

This is Maurice (Jerry Hearn), and, with his arrival, the plot definitely begins to thicken. It's hard to say too much about him, or the other characters, such as Edna (Liz St Clair Long), Tommy (Robert de Fries) and Tracy (Erin Pugh), without spoiling the play's surprises. Suffice it to say that Rosie's little masquerade, pretending to be the owner of something when she isn't, lands her in the middle of a very complicated situation indeed. She - and the audience - are in for a wild time of confusion, misunderstanding and intrigue.

Secret compartments, hidden cameras, unexpected weapons and sexual frustration are only the beginning of what's in store.

Ayckbourn, who was a stage manager and actor as a young man, has been an immensely prolific and successful playwright, having written, as of 2010, 74 full-length plays since he began writing in 1959. He has also been a busy director, having directed more than 300 productions in Britain and abroad, including the London premieres of 32 of his plays. In 1974, he held the record for having the most plays running simultaneously in the West End with Living Together, Table Manners, Round and Round the Garden, Absurd Person Singular and Absent Friends. Only Andrew Lloyd Webber (with whom Ayckbourn collaborated on the musical Jeeves) since has had more productions running concurrently.

Among his best known other works are The Norman Conquests trilogy (1973) and A Chorus of Disapproval (1984).

"He has a natural sense of comedy," Borny says, "and a very fine sense of dramatic construction: he's always able to shape a play beautifully...he's a real craftsman of the theatre whose characters are such interesting and likeable people."

And the journey he takes the audience on is a fun one.

_{FlatSpin is at Theatre 3, Ellery Crescent Acton, as follows: preview Thursday at 8pm then Friday to March 20, Wednesday to Saturday at 8pm, with 2pm matinees on March 13 and 20 and a 5pm twilight performance on March 14. Tickets: full $35, concession $27, preview/matinee/twilight $27. Bookings: 6257 1950 or www.canberrarep.org.au}