On the surface, Time of My Life, first performed in 1992, is a tragi-comedy about a dysfunctional family – a subject which features frequently in Ayckbourn’s work.

And how perceptive his family portraits are. But there is also a philosophical thread running through it. The set is a restaurant (Italian? Greek? It is hard to tell.) The opening scene is a family dinner party to celebrate Laura’s birthday, with her husband, Gerry, sons Glyn and Adam, Glyn’s wife Stephanie and Adam’s new girlfriend Maureen.

The subsequent scenes are both before and after the event, which set the birthday party in context, but also give a perspective on the nature of time and how it affects the way we see events our lives. Glyn observes to his wife that we look to the future and back to the past but rarely appreciate the moment we are in.

Sarah Parks excels as Laura, the mother and mother-in-law from hell, perfectly civilised on the surface but a cauldron of selfishness and spite inside. Her prime target is Maureen (Rachel Caffrey) who plays the out-of–her-depth girlfriend with agonising conviction. Her boyfriend Adam (James Powell) is mother’s favourite who you know from the start is never going to be able to cut the apron strings.

Behind her back Stephanie also comes in for a share of Laura’s flack. At first Emily Pithon’s high-pitched whine makes it hard to sympathise with her, but she probably develops her character more interestingly than the rest in the end.

One of the most hard worked actors is Ben Porter who plays all the waiters and the restaurant owner, in a succession of awful wigs and an appalling ‘foreign’ accent which deliciously lapses into broad Yorkshire when he forgets himself. It’s a gem of a performance.

The cast is completed by Russell Dixon as Gerry and Richard Stacey as Glyn.

On Saturday morning the Ensemble round off its week with two linked one-act plays, Farcicals.