LISA Evans will be hoping for a more rewarding experience in York this month than on her previous encounter with the city.

Tomorrow, the curtain rises on the premiere of her pregnancy comedy Up The Duff at the Theatre Royal, with the prospect of laughter contrasting with her childhood days at The Mount (the school also attended by cast member Sara Parks, incidentally).

Happy memories, Lisa?

“No, not the happiest memories. I came to York for three years. Just the three; that was enough and then I went home,” she says. “So it’s actually rather nice being here again, not feeling homesick and being able to see what a lovely city York is.”

Lisa, who lives in London, was speaking to York Twenty4Seven last Friday while attending rehearsals for a play that had a longer gestation period than first anticipated.

“It was originally commissioned by the Stephen Joseph Theatre,” she says. “Laurie Sansom, who was the associate director at the time, was my connection there as he had directed one of my plays, Getting To The Foot Of The Mountain, at the Birmingham Rep – I was told my titles had to be shorter after that one as it couldn’t all fit on the ticket.”

Never performed in Scarborough, the play “sat in a drawer for some time” but was reactivated when Lisa was working at the Orange Tree in Richmond.

“They have a wonderful director-training programme and two of the directors rushed up to me and said, ‘Have you got anything put away in a drawer?’ and this play came to mind,” says Lisa, right. “That must have been three years ago.”

A rehearsed reading ensued, whereupon Fresh Glory Productions came on board, and in turn the Theatre Royal, where the stage premiere will be staged in a co-production with Fresh Glory after artistic director Damian Cruden saw a recording of a reading filmed by a documentary-maker friend of Lisa.

Such has been the long and winding road that will lead to a commercial tour of number one theatres next summer or autumn after the world premiere in York.

What lies in store for Theatre Royal audiences from tomorrow? “It’s a ‘village-hall play’ where you get a group of women together who talk about their lives,” says Lisa, introducing her story of four pregnant women, one menopausal midwife, her husband and a knitted uterus.

In her past work, Lisa has written predominantly about women, and Up The Duff is no different.

“It’s principally because there aren’t enough parts for women and very few women writers, and having started out as an actor, I know just how few decent parts there are – and yet apparently women are the principal ticket buyers,” she says.

The title is certainly direct. “There’s no way you can disguise it: it’s a play about pregnant women. You can’t sneak that in under the cover of darkness,” says Lisa. “Pregnancy is essentially undignified, and I seemed to be the only one who saw the humour in that.”

So much so that here comes a play about beginnings, ends and big life changes. It should be swell.

• Up The Duff, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow until November 28. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk