Nick Lane and Fiona Wass team up as writing partners for Hopeless Romantics

Alan doesn’t think so, and he should know; aside from the girl with the pigtails and the lisp in primary school, he has spent his entire life as a “non-elective celibate”. Or to put it another way, he is single. Very, very single.

So begins Hopeless Romantics, the first writing collaboration of partners Nick Lane, the prolific South Yorkshire playwright, and Fiona Wass, an actress last seen in York in Theatre Mill's revival of Lane and John Godber's Moby Dick at York Guildhall last October.

Presented in association with Harrogate Theatre and Middlesbrough Theatre, Sheffield's Reform Theatre Company– regular collaborators with Lane – launch their world premiere this week, playing Selby Town Hall tomorrow night on a tour that will run until June 10 with a cast of Kivan Dene and Hannah Douglas.

Middle-class hedge fund manager Alan's single, solitary status would not be a problem but for his sisters all living romantic dreams with their various successful partners.

So when his judgmental parents invite the family together for an anniversary dinner, Alan does something rather reckless: he asks Zoe, a council-estate girl with artistic talent who is on work experience, to pose as his girlfriend for the night. Unfortunately for Alan, Zoe has romantic problems of her own, among other things. Will it be the start of a beautiful friendship or the end of the world as they know it?

Nick Lane

Lane has penned such hit comedies as My Favourite Summer and Me & Me Dad and is now seeking to take his partnership with Reform into new terrain. "Hopeless Romantics is the first result of an idea I'd had some time ago to help develop new writers," he says. "It's my belief that, for whatever reason, it's harder for female writers to make a breakthrough.

"It's tougher for them in this industry; they write brilliant dialogue, they're as good as their male counterparts, but they get overlooked, and yet there are writers out there who deserve their place in the sun.

"Keith [Hukin, Reform's director] was up for the idea, where originally I would be the dramaturg for a series of plays by women, but the Reform audience likes continuity and names they recognise, so I suggested,'why don't I co-write with a series of female writers and then they can do their own plays for Reform afterwards?'.

"To that end, I thought it would be fun to create a world where the characters of one play can be referred to in the next one, so it would be like a collection of stories, built around a family, a northern geographical location, or whatever, though I don't want to prescribe that. That should be left to the writer."

Nick and Fiona had written detective stories and The Balloon Animals together for the York Kids Story programme at York Theatre Royal in 2004, and now they have teamed up once more for Hopeless Romantics, Nick writing the first act from Alan's hopeful, romantic perspective; Fiona, the second, as seen through Zoe's cynical eyes.

"I'd already had the idea for the play, but it changed once Fi worked on it, with a slightly sweeter ending at her suggestion," Nick says. "Because it's the first thing she's written, and she has a lack of confidence, she'll say it was my idea, but it was hers."

Fiona Wass

Over to you Fiona. "Nick did 'babysit' me a lot, but he did say to me, 'you should do what you want', so he'd let me write scenes and see how they progressed. We're the same sort of age and we're attuned to each other's voice, and he encouraged me to write from the female perspective by calling on my own experiences," she says.

"As I was writing a play for the first time, Nick steered me through the process, which was a really interesting experience, and what he's really good at is structuring, which is what I've always struggled with. He's so patient and positive, which has really helped."

In her student days, Fiona had started a degree in English Literature at Warwick University but dropped out to go to drama school instead. "But I've always wanted to write and in fact I'd originally wanted to be a journalist," she says.

Now that she is a mother, nurturing daughter Ivy makes opportunities for acting "more difficult", but writing is a more open field to explore. "I was a novice, coming into writing Hopeless Romantics, but it's been an eye-opener working with Nick, and I've since been dabbling with writing my own stuff," says Fiona. "Definitely it's something I want to do more. I have this piece that I'm thinking of doing as a one-woman show."

So, Fiona, how did you sweeten Nick's original suggestion for an ending to Hopeless Romantics? "Nick's version was very dark; he can tend towards the bleak, but as a woman I'm quite romantic, and I maybe brought that voice to it, saying you have to be nicer," she says. "I love seeing theatre that totally entertains, and I get frustrated with plays that just leave you hanging or are too dark."

Reform Theatre Company's tour of Hopeless Romantics runs until June 10. For full details, visit reformtheatre.com

Dates include Selby Town Hall, May 5; Junction, Goole, May 6; Helmsley Arts Centre, May 7; Pavilion Theatre, Whitby, May 8; Pocklington Arts Centre, May 9; Spotlight Theatre, Bridlington, May 20; Harrogate Theatre Studio Theatre, May 23 to 27.