GIVEN that the theme of If I Were You is a change of perspective brought about by dramatically altered circumstances, it might be presupposed that Alan Ayckbourn wrote it in response to suffering a stroke in February.

Not so. Sir Alan's 70th play was already in place and, after a summer of recuperation, he has returned to "the excitement of a rehearsal room full of people" and his favoured back-row eerie on press night.

He is back on familiar territory in his writing too: the particularly English world of lousy husbands and women turned mousy by men who never learn their lesson until now.

This is one of those reviews where you wish you could ape the Ten O'Clock News in saying "if you don't want to know the results, look away now", but dear readers, your reviewer will desist from giving away the plot twist signposted in the play's title.

Roger Glossop's set forewarns of domestic dispute: a modern bedroom and dressing table, a kitchen sink, table and chairs, and a sitting room and sofa. Save for their all being on one level, it would be one of Ayckbourn's most anonymous settings on first sight.

However, the speedy use of doorways and mime for the opening and closing of curtains is a portent of farce as well as indication of the enervating influence of routine on downtrodden housewife and mother Jill Rodale (Liza Goddard, her blond hair newly darkened to match the mood).

What's more, without a single change of prop, the set is transformed into a showroom run by Jill's cheating husband, Mal (John Branwell), a curry-guzzling, porn-watching, heavy-coughing slug prone to smelling yesterday's socks. Again, this theatrical device chimes with the theme: looking at the same stage in two different ways.

The first half is the bleakest Ayckbourn drama ever, darker than an Ibsen comedy, full of lies, secrets and suppressed hurt, in a desire to avoid confrontation. Depressed Jill is unable to break out of her rut; daughter Chrissie (Saskia Butler) craves a return to work and is in self-denial over the bruises inflicted by husband Dean (Andrew Brooke), Mal's golden boy in the showroom. Sensitive soul Sam (David Hartley) hates his dad, who can't abide the prospect of his son performing in a Shakespeare play.

Where can it go from this point of gloom and despondency? Just before half-time comes a life and play-changing transformation, more in keeping with Ayckbourn's Christmas plays for children but this time with adult impact.

Amid the physical comedy and verbal tennis, you will see Liza Goddard in a new light, far beyond that hair colour change, as Ayckbourn has wonderful fun at the expense of male and female characteristics alike.

Will it alter anything? Divorce courts and Ayckbourn's past plays would suggest not, but it makes a change from marriage guidance counselling.

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