NORTHERN Broadsides and York Theatre Royal are tying the knot to mount a touring production of J B Priestley’s 1938 northern comedy When We Are Married.

This Yorkshire theatrical union is being directed by Broadsides artistic director Barrie Rutter, who is delighted at last to be presenting Bradford playwright Priestley's tale of the Helliwells, the Parkers and the Soppitts: pillars of their community in their West Riding town of Cleckleywyke, but not for much longer.

Married on the same day in the same chapel, they gather to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, but the celebrations are cut short when they discover the vicar was not licensed and they are not married after all. In fact they have been living in sin for 25 years.

Cue pandemonium but gradually horrified social embarrassment makes way for the realisation that they are free from the shackles of long, tedious marriages. Home truths are meted out; bullies receive their retribution and the henpecked are liberated.

"We've been chasing the touring rights for this play for something like 12 years," says Rutter. "It's a totally unfair situation, but it's all about the money with the West End companies buying up the rights.

York Press:

Zoe Lambert's Blackpool broad Lottie Grady and Barrie Rutter's tipsy photographer Henry Ormonroyd in When We Are Married. Picture: Nobby Clark

"So when me and Conrad [Nelson] went to Tom Priestley's office, we thought we'd have to sing for our supper, but thankfully it turned out to be a done deal for us and a minute into our meeting we had the touring rights. 'Oh good, Northern Broadsides, just a bit of furniture and good acting,' he said."

Consequently, Northern Broadsides and York Theatre Royal are now working together for a second time, ten years on from their co-production of Blake Morrison’s adaptation of Goldoni’s Italian farce The Man With Two Gaffers in York.

Looking forward to the new collaboration between the Halifax and York companies, Rutter says: "When We Are Married is the quintessential Yorkshire comedy with an absurd plot overflowing with authentic attitudes of the day; fun for the cast as well as the audience. Having wanted to stage this classic comedy for many years and to have the opportunity to once again co-produce with York Theatre Royal, especially in its beautifully refurbished building, makes for a goodly double.”

Rutter's autumn's cast will feature Sue Devaney as Annie Parker, Steve Huison as Herbert Soppitt and Selby actor Luke Adamson as Gerald Forbes, joined by fellow familiar faces from the northern stage Adrian Hood as Albert Parker, Matthew Booth as Fred Dyson, Lisa Howard as Mrs Northrop and Rutter himself as photographer Henry Ormonroyd.

York Press:

Barrie Rutter as newspaper photographer Henry Ormonroyd and Kat Rose-Martin as housemaid Ruby Birtle in When We Are Married. Picture: Nobby Clark

In the company too are Kate Anthony as Maria Helliwell, John Gully as the Reverend Clement Mercer, Mark Stratton as Joe Helliwell and Sophia Hatfield, as Nancy Holmes, while Zoe Lambert as Lottie Grady, Kat Louise-Martin as Ruby Birtle and Andy Hall's Mayor of Cleckleywyke complete the northern company.

"It took us 12 years to get it, but it's here now, and as Ted Hughes said to me on a postcard that I've still got, 'my tuning fork is in the Calder Valley', and it's the same with Priestley: his tuning fork is in Bradford," says Rutter.

"This piece is a musical, where the music is in the text, and even in the early days of rehearsals we know where the music works. I know people know this, but it's not about character, but about music. Most plays are. Already in rehearsal we're getting a lot more non-naturalism in it; a lot of choric reaction.

"Priestley knew what he was doing! This is a crafted piece of writing. He may have described it as hokum, but he knew the characters, he knew the situations, he knew that world from his experiences, and the play has a heart as big as Yorkshire."

York Press:

Kat Rose-Martin and director Barrie Rutter in rehearsal for When We Are Married. Picture: Nobby Clark

All the portents point to a perfect marriage of Priestley, Broadsides, a top-notch cast, and a happy marriage with the redeveloped York Theatre Royal, but Rutter is taking nothing for granted. "It can't be casual. Casual doesn't do it. So we still have to work at it, embracing the glorious text. My tuning fork, my composing job, is not to let that slip by, because audiences adore watching things they know and others don't on stage," he says.

"It can be fear, in the great tragedies, and in the great comedies it tugs the heartstrings, as the director Peter Wood said to me when I was playing Bob Acres in The Rivals. It's comedies that make you go, 'oh no, don't do that' when you watch them.

"Comedies take us and twist us and make us writhe. They have the ability to squeeze your heart, to ride it, to chuck it from side to side. There's a sadness to it too, a comic sadness, but my god it slaps your face. You've got to play it for its own reality. That thing of 'being truthful' is over-emphasised in theatre but you must play it for its own reality."

When We Are Married will open at York Theatre Royal from September 9 to 24 and then tour around Yorkshire to Hull Truck Theatre, September 27 to October 1; West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, October 18 to 22, and Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, October 25 to 29, finishing up at the Viaduct Theatre in Northern Broadsides' home town of Halifax from November 29 to December 10. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk; Leeds, 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org,uk; Scarborough, 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com