York Settlement Community Players present Alan Ayckbourn’s Miss Yesterday, York Theatre Royal Studio, March 7 to 17 (From York Press)

York Settlement Community Players present Alan Ayckbourn’s Miss Yesterday, York Theatre Royal Studio, March 7 to 17

11:57am Friday 27th January 2012 in Theatre By Charles Hutchinson

YORK Settlement Community Players are to stage Alan Ayckbourn’s Miss Yesterday in the York Theatre Royal Studio from March 7 to 17.

Life in your teens can be unfair, even cruel, as troubled Tammy discovers in Ayckbourn’s back-to-the-future drama, first performed in the winter family show slot at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in December 2004.

Posh public schooldays are a disaster and at home Tammy can do nothing right, as she outlines in “an important statement by me, Tamara Elizabeth Laidlaw, age 15”, her list that charts her teenage reasons for being unhappy.

Then something really terrible happens, a tragedy that will change her life for ever. Running off to put as much distance as she can between herself and her life, she encounters The Stranger on a park bench, whereupon she is given the chance to go back 24 hours to yesterday to rectify matters.

She grabs the opportunity, but is it possible to change the world around you without changing yourself? All will be revealed in Ayckbourn’s serious comedy for young people and families in Settlement’s production, co-directed by Graham Sanderson and Sue Skirrow.

“Miss Yesterday is a delight to direct,” they say. “We’re very pleased with the cast; they’re very quick to respond to ideas and they bring to the play strong imaginative insights of their own. The production team is very strong too, with a wealth of experience and skills.

“Although we’ve both worked on many productions before with young people in schools, this is the first time we’ve directed adults in a play for young people. We think it’s probably also Settlement’s first venture of this kind too, so the production offers plenty of new and interesting challenges.”

Lucy May Orange will play Tammy; Terri-Ann Prendergast, her best friend, Roz; Alan Flower, her brother Ian; Mike Hickman, her plastic surgeon father, Andrew; Helen Wilson, her mother Josie, a counsellor.

Further roles go to Beryl Nairn, Vivienne Clare and Lee Starkey, while Graham and Sue are joined in the production team by set designer Mike Rogers, sound designer Paul Hepworth and costume adviser Helen Taylor.

The co-directors are “especially pleased” to be directing one of Ayckbourn’s less well-known plays. “It’s never been published,” they note.

“We love the way Alan Ayckbourn moves between high comedy and moments of real sadness without losing pace or slipping into sentimentality. The play deals with some complex ideas – chaos theory for one, and also hard issues, such as the loss of someone close to you – and it does so with such a light touch that there’s always a dramatic tension between comedy and near tragedy that heightens both.

“We think audiences will have as much fun watching it as we’re having directing it.”

Tickets for the 7.45pm evening shows and 2pm Saturday matinees can be booked on 01904 623568 or online at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk