A Family Affair
Christopher Owen
Genre: Comedy
Cast size: 3
Duration: 45 mins approx
Christopher Owen | Comedy | One Act | 1m, 2f
Short synopsis
- Synopsis
- Characters
The comedy is set in Dilys and Brian’s dining room in their house in a small town in Wales. They and Dilys’ sister Miriam are having Sunday lunch. Dilys and Miriam are sisters who have always been jealous of each other especially where men are concerned. Brian, Dilys’ husband, is caught in the middle. However, it turns out he has a few surprises up his sleeve.
Dilys makes it known that she is aware that Miriam has started having an affair with Brian and announces she is intent on divorcing Brian. She is planning a visit to London, but she insists that Brian and Miriam get married. She maintains that since Miriam’s husband Harry died, and because Brian is ‘useless’, neither of them are capable of living alone.
The life-long jealousy between the two sisters gives rise to accusations of each stealing the other’s teenage boyfriends and lovers over the years. Miriam owns up to her affair with Brian and tells Dilys that she and Brian are planning to go away for a long weekend to Rome. However, Brian thought it was Bangor they’d planned to go. Miriam is not pleased, and insists it must be Rome. Brian then surprises both of them by announcing he is not going anywhere with Miriam; that he going away for a weekend to Keswick with Rosemary who works in the bank at which he is employed.
It transpires he is also going out with Angharad, the wife of the butcher from whom Dilys bought their Sunday joint. By the time they've finished the main course and the pudding, we’ve discovered Dilys is going out with Alan who once went out with Miriam and had an affair with Brian’s Angharad, and that Miriam is having an affair with her dentist.
Could it get any worse or more complicated? Fortunately not, and the three come to an uneasy truce as the coffee and mints are served.
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