THERE's an opportunity to get in the festive spirit early, with a production of Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular, to be performed at The Wharf in Tavistock from Tuesday November 15 to Friday, November 18 by The Tavonians Theatre Company.

No Christmas drinks party will seem so very bad after audiences have seen the disasters which befall the three couples in one of Alan Ayckbourn's funniest and most poignant of plays.

The Christmas Eve drinks parties are, or should be, going on elsewhere in the house but all the real action takes place in the three couple's kitchens. Ayckbourn found that once he set the scene away from what should have been the main action it allowed the characters to be themselves much more, and enabled the expression of more personal thoughts and actions. The play was first performed in the early 1970s, and The Tavonians are setting it in that period.

Director Stuart Waterworth said: 'This is Ayckbourn at his very best — a play with insight and with some of the funniest lines he ever wrote. The humour flows from the tragedy – for the whole of one act one character is trying to commit suicide in various different ways and she doesn't say a word. No one notices. This is probably one of the most interesting and tragic parts Ayckbourn has written.'

In each act the interaction of the three couples becomes more complex as the relationships between them twist and turn and fortunes are turned around.

The first party is hosted by Sidney, a tradesperson, whose wife Jane likes nothing better than to clean her own and other people's kitchens, even on Christmas Eve; he is determined to better himself but she is incapable of hosting the sort of party that he needs in order to impress his guests.

Act Two is in the home of architect Geoffrey and his wife Eva, whose needs he totally ignores while chasing other women; she reaches the end of her tether in one of the funniest scenes in modern theatre. The third kitchen belongs to bank manager Ronald who doesn't understand women at all and consequently his wife Marion grows more alcoholic each year.

Tickets for the Tuesday Preview performance are at half price, just £4.50, and for the other performances at £9, available from The Wharf box office on 01822 611166.