This play was premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London in 2006. The play has just been released for amateurs so RDG may be the first to perform it. Charlotte Jones is the author of "Humble Boy" which won Best New Play awards in 2002. She also wrote the book for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Woman in White" which played in the West End and on Broadway.

The play is set in the front room of an affluent, North London, middle class couple's home, on or near Halloween. The Lightning Play centres around a group of people each searching for their own identity.

The ghost writer Max is plagued by recurring images of his estranged daughter, Anna, on his new plasma TV. His wife Harriet is an equally lost soul who finds solace in shopping. Their guests at a disastrous ad-hoc party seem equally adrift. Longstanding friend Eddie is a failed Carthusian Monk, whilst his date Jacklyn is a loner dabbling in new age ideas. Only heavily pregnant Imogen (Anna’s hearty school friend) and her straight laced husband Marcus have any secure sense of who they are.

The wandering do-gooder Anna (unseen except in filmed footage from long ago) is discovered to have a moving reason for her crusading instincts – but to say more would spoil the sense of surprise when you read the play.

Skilfully blending comedy with spookiness, Charlotte Jones gives us a play which taps into a concern about the emptiness of a life which is defined by possessions because what you most desire is unobtainable. Working on several levels the play looks at the enigma of modern life with its breakdown of moral certainties, the subsequent longing for spirituality and the hopelessness of some of the batty alternatives.

Much of the first part of the play consists of sharp one liners and is an easy and enjoyable watch. The plays occurrence over Halloween brings in an element of suspense and mystery with spooks and phantoms at the door for a couple who we learn harbour private ghosts of their own. Not for nothing is Max a ghost writer.

The play gives up its dark secrets in carefully controlled, well written and plotted chunks that will make you laugh, cry, and slightly shiver. The witty dialogue, the stage presentation, the special filmed inserts and the handling of the story’s strong themes makes for superior theatre. Set in several locations suggested by shifts in lighting, the characters' social masks eventually slip down and their repressed emotions go bump in the night .

Jones is writing about a gathering thunderstorm and the attendant fall out that in some cases we carry with us for our entire lives.

A flyer giving booking details for this play can be downloaded from the link at : http://rdg.org/flyers/lightning-play.pdf

Photographs of the play can be obrained from Alan Bostock at www.photoeyes.biz