AT the risk of becoming repetitive, this is play number two in Alan Ayckbourn's series of eight Intimate Exchanges plays being revived in their entirety for the first time in two decades at Scarborough.

Four more will join the summer rep season under the guest direction of Tim Luscombe; the remaining two complete the set next year.

By all means, see all eight - the glossy commemorative programme has a pouch to accommodate a slim-fit version for every show - but each can be enjoyed on individual merit.

Luscombe uses the same nostalgic pop music and slickly choreographed scene changes each time, just as Ayckbourn always starts with Celia Teasdale deciding whether to light a cigarette and ends with a graveyard scene five years later.

The heroic and thoroughly wonderful cast of two, Bill Champion and Claudia Elmhirst, already has introduced us to grumpy, booze-pickled headmaster Toby Teasdale, his exasperated yet plucky wife, Celia; Rod Stewart-haired school caretaker, Lionel Hepplewick; and deeply blonde cleaner/dreamer girlfriend, Sylvie.

Each returns for "Protest", but to the fore this time is another couple undergoing domestic difficulties: the terribly nice, earnest Miles, chairman of the board of governors, and free-spirited wife Rowena, a wild redhead who has had every man at the squash club bouncing off the wall.

In protest, Miles takes to the Teasdales' cluttered shed.

Sweetly deluded Celia believes it to be a declaration of love, but Miles has sought tentative comfort in the young, inquisitive Sylvie, while Rowena finally takes note of his crisis of confidence.

If the women favour the gentle approach to entice him from his emotional bunker, the ever intolerant Toby - every cruel line a winner from Ayckbourn's vituperative pen - demands the immediate ejection of Miles.

The somewhat loopy Lionel is only too happy to hatch his own batty plan to effect such a removal.

Luscombe's production is a wicked, briskly whisked delight, all the more so for characters becoming quickly familiar in the manner of Fawlty Towers and One Foot In The Grave.

Champion and Elmhirst's characterisation has both surface appeal and emotional depth, making you crave the next instalment, A Garden Fete, from June 15.

Intimate Exchanges, A One Man Protest, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on various dates until July 8.

Box office: 01723 370541.