FOR one day only, the Stephen Joseph Theatre will present a world exclusive script reading of a new Alan Ayckbourn work on Sunday as part of the Scarborough theatre's 60th anniversary celebrations.

The SJT will welcome back special guest actors to join this summer's repertory company from Ayckbourn's revival of Confusions and world premiere of Hero's Welcome for a gala reading of The Divide.

Between them, returnees Liza Goddard, Alexandra Mathie, Paul Kemp, Laura Doddington, Ruth Gibson and James Powell have appeared in more than 40 productions at the SJT and now reunite with the knighted playwright and director on the East Coast for Sunday's marathon enterprise.

Summer company members Stephen Billington, Russell Dixon, Elizabeth Boag, Emma Manton, Richard Stacey and Terenia Edwards will be on the reading rota, as will Scarborough’s own Andy Cryer, latterly seen at the SJT in The Last Train To Scarborough and Aladdin.

Budding actor Sam Tennant will make his first appearance in his hometown, alongside ten-year old Velvet Hebditch, who appeared in Ayckbourn's Arrivals & Departures last year.

Scarborough actors Katherine Dunn-Mines and Fleur Mould will be part of the 18-strong cast too, while Sunday's performance also marks a return to the stage for former actress Heather Stoney, now Lady Ayckbourn, who appeared regularly with the company throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

The Divide is an epic five-part sexual satire, described by Ayckbourn as “a deliberate attempt to jump away from anything familiar to me”. “It’s a dialogue based upon two diaries; one of a boy and one of a girl growing up in a weird world. It’s less Game Of Thrones, more social satire. It’s a dystopian fantasy set in a completely re-imagined world where men and women live separately.”

Sunday's audience will be the first and likely the only people to see The Divide brought to life, on account of the performance spanning six and a half hours with a break for supper. “It’s so big that, as far as I know, it’s a unique one-off, the one occasion anyone will get a chance to see, hear or experience it,” says Ayckbourn.

In his satirical tale, not so long ago, let it not be forgotten, as decreed by The Preacher, men and women lived apart on separate sides of the Divide in segregated isolation. The celebrated novelist Soween Clay-Flin recalls this period in our recent history with dramatised readings based on documents of the period, including her own personal diary as a young girl who lived through it and survived to tell the tale.

Sunday's gala reading starts at 3pm and is due to finish at approximately 9.30pm, allowing for 15-minute intervals at 4pm, 5.15pm and 8.15pm and a longer supper break at 6.30pm.

Limited tickets remain available at £15 on 01723 370541 and online at sjt.uk.com