The play, performed at Leighton Library Theatre, was described as a gentle comedy but watching 58-year-old Beryl Stevens fall apart after her selfish pig of a husband walked out "to find himself" there was considerable empathy from the audience but not too many guffaws.

These sort of bitter-sweet kitchen sink dramas are often the lifeblood of am-dram groups but Frank Vickery's appalling dialogue and recycled story really should have been consigned to the bin.

Every cliché in the book was dragged up, the middle-aged man going through a mid-life crisis, the wife who hits the bottle because she is so lacking in confidence and self-esteem that she couldn't cope with the break-up, the expectant twist in the ending, the nosy but good-hearted neighbour – this was play-writing for dummies and as formulaic as it came.

That's not to say it wasn't entertaining. LBDG did the best they could with incredibly hackneyed lines "There's nothing here for me any more!" wailed husband Ted, "Things haven't been good for a long time!"
Beryl becomes almost hysterical.

"I am a 58-year-old woman. What is out there for me?" she cries.
"It's now or never," replies Ted.

You get the idea, Mills and Boon for the soap generation. I'm not sure if warring couples do actually talk like this but if they do then they need a new scriptwriter.

I wanted to slap Beryl around the face to wake her out of her inertia. Her husband did the dirty and walked out. She hit the bottle, made a feeble attempt at suicide, and spent the next few months desperately hoping he'd return to her.

Didn't the woman have any pride or self respect? Well, as it turned out, yes she did, but it was a long time coming.

Her next-door-neighbour, Dawn, played court jester, doing her bit to jolly her along, as did Beryl's grown up but sexually frustrated daughter, Angie.

There was even Scott, the handyman cum gardener, who, I guess was supposed to be the sexual fantasy figure woman (certainly Beryl, Angie and Dawn) dream of but, sorry Julien Hicks, you really didn't do it for me.

My biggest problem with the drama was Barbara Springthorpe's Beryl. This is very much her play, she's on stage almost the entire time, yet the actress found it impossible to look at whichever character was talking to her. There's something very off-putting with a person who can't make eye contact.

She was trying to have sincere conversation with her feisty daughter ( an excellent Kim Aguilar) but kept gazing out into the audience.

Bob Jones lumbered in and out of scenes with an incredibly wooden performance as errant husband Ted. He appeared uncomfortable throughout and looked the most unlikeliest husband ever to run off, get hair extensions, and "find himself". What he needed to find was a personality.

Almost all of the comedy was given to nosey neighbour Dawn, which would have been great if actress Lainy Ward had been a natural comedian.
Lainy has great potential, if only she'd slow down and speak up. There was something of the Linda Robson or Pauline Quirk about her but she needed a shot of confidence.

There were some lines that evoked a genuine chuckle, particularly when Dawn admitted that she often made love to her fat, lazy husband while imagining he was George Clooney.

"It might be wrong," she declared "but it stops it from being bloody boring!"