NEWPORT Playgoers open their season at the city's Dolman Theatre with the delightful Ayckbourn comedy Relatively Speaking - and for director Gwyneth Moulden Nicholas the play has a certain familiarity.

Gwyneth took part in NPS's first production of the play, just five years after it was written, in 1970.

"I thoroughly enjoyed being in the play - and it's lovely to be able to direct it now," said Gwyneth

There are two couples involved in the comic confusion, an unmarried couple who feel they should be married, and a married couple who are wondering if maybe they shouldn't.

If Sheila had gone to church that morning; if Ginny hadn't left her lover's address lying around; if Greg had found his own slippers and Phillip had discovered his hoe things might have been very different - but they didn't and they're not.

The couples find themselves drawn to the inevitable confrontation at The Willows, Lower Pendon, Buckinghamshire, on a sunny summer's day.

Ceri Parsons makes her NPS debut as Ginny, with Jonathan Connick as her long-suffering boyfriend Greg, and Ruth Ferguson and Graham Bryant bicker happily as the older couple.

There are laughs aplenty as the four attempt to sort out the tangled relationships between them.

Relatively Speaking is at the Dolman Theatre in Newport city centre's Kingsway from September 13 to 18. Tickets are available on the night or from The Visitor Centre at Newport Library in John Frost Square.

Performances start at 7.15pm except Friday which is at 7.30pm.