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Love Begins At Fifty

Raymond Hopkins

Genre: Comedy

Cast size: 9

Duration: Two Act

Raymond Hopkins | Comedy | Full-length | 3m, 6f

Short synopsis

After twenty-eight years in a loveless marriage, Clive Debanks decides to have an affair. He selects three prospective partners from the ‘Lonely Hearts’ column in the local paper. The same paper is running a competition to find the perfect married couple, the first prize being a Caribbean cruise. His wife, Anita, secretly enters. The night Clive is entertaining one of his dates, a photographer from the paper arrives to take pictures of the ‘happy married couple’.

Clive Debanks, who has been married to Anita for 28 years, is approaching his fiftieth birthday. Although in a loveless marriage, he has never been unfaithful, but all that is about to change.

Whilst sorting out his loft, Clive discovers his old Dansette record player and some of his original 45 records. After all these years the player still works, and while listening to the ‘sounds of the sixties,’ he is reawakened to those long forgotten sensual feelings of his adolescent years.

As the preparations for his fiftieth birthday party are underway, Clive decides it is time to bring some life back into his life. Aided and abetted by his best mate, Jack, he chooses three prospective partners from the ‘Lonely Hearts’ column in the local paper, with the idea of spicing up his non-existent love life! By a strange twist of fate, the same newspaper is offering a Caribbean cruise as the first prize in a competition to find the perfect married couple. Anita enters the competition, but keeps it a secret from Clive. A photographer arrives to take the pictures of the happily married couple on the night that Anita is away and Clive is busy entertaining one of his new dates. From that point onwards, things get a little complicated, to say the least.

By the time the fiftieth birthday party arrives, Clive’s adulterous affair has been exposed. However, Anita, who is now playing the scorned and betrayed wife, has a hidden secret that will change everyone’s lives forever!   

The action is fast and furious in this hilarious farcical comedy - one of the funniest we have ever published.

Written in 1998. This play has been performed around the world.

(3m, 6f)

  • Anita Debanks - 52, well educated, feels that she has married beneath herself, and consequently, treats her husband with contempt, immaculate dress sense
  • Clive Debanks - 49, Anita’s husband, romantic, starved of love and affection, happy to let the world go by, very easy going, not much dress sense
  • Jack Reynolds - 48, Clive’s lifelong friend, confirmed bachelor, likes female company without any commitment, down to earth, lives for today, full of charisma
  • Claire Murphy - 53, Anita’s lifelong friend, slightly overweight, poor dress sense, habit of misinterpreting a situation and will often say the wrong thing
  • Tracy Barton - 23, Anita and Clive’s daughter, has lots of her mother’s traits, although has a compassionate side to her nature, keeps up with modern fashion, makes the best of her appearance, lives on an emotional roller coaster
  • Annabel Wickson - 27, date, slim, very attractive, good dress sense, not over intelligent, can be outspoken, searching for some fun in her life
  • Mavis Leggett - 65, date, gives the appearance of being slightly doddery but is always able to hold her own, dresses in quirky clothes, eccentric
  • Emily Roberts - 42, date, very attractive, good figure, comes from a poor background, never married, kind and considerate, painfully shy
  • Henry Clarke - 40, photographer, Cockney with a lot of chatter, happy-go-lucky attitude to life, flash dresser

Suzie - the goldfish

Free

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Love Begins At Fifty

Free
More information

Please Note: We manage the global rights to this play with the exception of Australia and New Zealand. Customers in these two countries please go to David Spicer Productions

If you require any additional information regarding this script, please don’t hesitate to contact us here.

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All our musicals are included in our perusal service. Through this, representatives of producing organisations can request a USB Stick of perusal material  which comprise the script/libretto and piano/vocal score as PDF files; a Cast (or Studio) Recording as MP3 files and (where available) an MP4 file video of either the premiere production or of a subsequent production.

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