Stage Plays by Ian Hornby

Review - West Moors Drama Group - click to enlarge

The Ex Factor
Farce - single set - 3m 4f

Synopsis
Imagine it - you and your wife-to-be are struggling to open your bed and breakfast. The B&B inspector is due any moment.

So it is for Phil and Jane. Except the imminent inspector is Phil’s ex-wife Felicity, and there never was any love lost between the two women. And there’s a rumour that Felicity’s latest beau used to be a Chippendale - not good when your first guests - two matronly women - are also due to arrive. And the place is almost - but not quite - finished, the rising wind threatening to blow the roof off the barn.

The stage is set for misunderstandings, jealousy, women at war and even a burglary.

That all-pervading scent of the farmyard doesn’t help either.

Author's notes
Another idea started by a title. How to cash in on the popularity of the TV "talent" show..?

The idea of a glamorous and hoity-toity ex wife descending on a farm which constantly has a whiff of manure in the air was too good to resist. And while I was writing this I went to see Philip King's "See How They Run" at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre - the temptation to add a similarly mad chase scene was too much to resist, too.

Occasionally I write in a role who, despite not being "the lead" in terms of the number of lines, is the kind of character audiences warm to and who can "steal the show". Farm hand Ron is just such a character in this case - a simple, lusty man of the soil with a charmingly tender side.