DIRECTING the York Settlement Community Players in Alan Ayckbourn’s Miss Yesterday has presented Graham Sanderson and Sue Skirrow with a first.

“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,” they say. “We think it’s probably also Settlement’s first venture of this kind too, so the production offers plenty of new and interesting challenges.”

Settlement settled on Miss Yesterday when looking for “something for young people and families, something different for Settlement to do”, says Graham. “Various suggestions came up and someone said, ‘What about Alan Ayckbourn? What about Miss Yesterday?’. We didn’t know the play, so we looked it up on the website and liked the sound of it.”

Sue duly contacted the agent, Casarotto Ramsay, and although the play had not been published, it was nevertheless available for performance.

In Ayckbourn’s back-to-the-future comedy drama, life in your teens can be unfair, as troubled Tammy discovers. Her posh public schooldays are a disaster and at home she can do nothing right, as she outlines in “an important statement by me, Tamara Elizabeth Laidlaw, age 15”, her list of teenage reasons for being unhappy.

Then, when tragedy strikes, she encounters The Stranger on a park bench, whereupon she is given the chance to go back 24 hours to yesterday to rectify matters, but will it be possible to change the world around her without changing herself?

Ayckbourn’s world premiere played mainly to children, especially school parties, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in 2004, but Graham and Sue envisage it attracting a broader audience for its run in the York Theatre Royal Studio from March 7 to 17.

“We don’t want to lose our adult audience and we don’t think we will,” says Sue.

“It’s a piece that, in rehearsal, we keep finding more and more resonances and subtleties, and the cast keep finding more resonances too,” says Graham. “We like the fact that it’s a serious comedy that asks serious questions.”

“It’s a play that addresses serious difficulties, in particular loss, and comes to terms with it,” adds Sue.

“Essentially it’s a play about growing up but also with all these other layers to it,” says Graham. “It’s also very funny,” stresses Sue.

Graham and Sue are also drawn to the pathos in Ayckbourn’s writing.

“You see this agonising time for this 15-year-old girl – it’s always seen from her point of view – and you can see her being pulled in all sorts of directions at the same time,” says Sue.

“One of the strengths of the play is that young people will identify with Tammy and her situation, but so will adults, who will remember their own teenage days and as parents will think of their own children’s experiences,” says Graham.

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