Cast

Synopsis

Alderman Helliwell, Councillor Parker, Mr Soppitt and their wives gather to celebrate their joint 25th wedding anniversary with a Yorkshire high tea of proportions befitting the importance of the occasion and of themselves. However their self satisfaction is punctured by a revelation that their marriage ceremony may not have been valid. The men panic about the disastrous effect on their standing in the Council and the Chapel should the matter become known. Ultimate disaster looms when the men from the Yorkshire Argus arrive to report on the happy event!!

Directors Notes

When we are married…..Why, what will you do?

I’ll be as sweet as I can to you…..

But what happens to tender sentiments of love after 25 years of Holy Wedlock ? The theme of the play is Marrlage but it also deals with the eternal human folbles that have always been a basis for comedy – snobbery, pomposity and self satisfaction (Here with a spicing of West Riding chapel hypocrisy).

If you think that When We Are Married is a perlod plece you are right and perhaps that is part of its charm. When J. B. Priestley wrote it in 1938 he was recalling the Yorkshire folk of his boy-hood in 1908 and he made it clear that “the characters and their attitudes and their talk are all authentic”. This is what West Riding people were really like and we are not really that different in essentials today. Scratch our veneer of sophistication and surely there is an Ormonroyd, a Ruby or a Marla Helllwell underneath. Above all this is a play which is life affirming. All turns out for the best in this best of all possible worlds,