Alan Ayckbourn enjoys theatre on the edge. It keeps his actors – and their audience – on their toes. The latest work from this prolific playwright is a collection of five one-act plays with linking characters.

Early-arriving members of the audience choose four of the five and the order in which they are performed on that particular night. There are 120 possible permutations.

You could go every night this week and see a different combination and the running order would affect your perception of the situations and the characters. It is very clever and highly entertaining.

There is a judge, his daughter, a sleazy MP, an agency escort, a wannabe teenage actress, a failed actress, a vicar, and a few other individuals who add a form of punctuation to the narratives.

The stories are in turn, moving, funny and shocking. The judge, (Russell Dixon) ageing and losing his memory, tries to rekindle memories of his late wife with the aid of the escort (Brooke Kinsella), who is a little out of her depth but tries to play his game. Both actors perfectly demonstrate the delicate balance between comedy and pathos.

The versatile Richard Stacey, as the vicar, got to show several sides of the clergyman’s character in Monday’s running order. We saw him as a keen and kind youth leader, then his joy and despair at his finding and losing again his first love and finally his horror at receiving a shocking confession.

There were shades of Rik Mayall’s Alan B’stard in Nigel Hastings’ MP, Leo, condescending, hypocritical, shady and hilariously misunderstanding the visit from hopeful teenage actress, played by the feisty Krystle Hylton.

Other key players were Elizabeth Boag, Sarah Stanley, and Leigh Symonds.

Four entertaining plays for the price of one can’t be bad.