STAGE REVIEW: Monogamy - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Wednesday, May 2, to Saturday, May 5, 2018.

MIX a strong, quality cast together, provide them with the opportunity - the roles, the ingredients - to make the most of a brand new comedy from one of our fresh, leading playwrights of the modern era, and you have that sweet smell of success.

This might give you an inkling that Torben Betts’ offering is inextricably linked to culinary matters and it certainly falls snugly into place given the plethora of cookery shows that frequent our television screens these days. This inevitably brings to the forefront of one’s mind such cuisine queens as Delia, Nigella, Mary and more recently Nadia.

There’s nothing half-baked about Monogamy though which features a celebrity chef, Caroline Mortimer - excellently played by Janie Dee, who has it all until she tries to squeeze more into her life only to find her latest ‘dish’ boiling over.

Betts himself says: “I quite like messing about with what some might call old-fashioned ways of doing plays. Gathering people together in one place and making it hard for them to leave and then turning up the heat.”

A somewhat apt metaphor given the subject in this comedy which throws up and examines a number of relatively bizarre relationships - a builder and his mentally troubled wife, a son eager to relate his ‘secret’ to his father, and of course the main characters - a tv chef married to a golfing nut who, in spite of having his first hole-in-one, bemoans the fate of a fellow golfer who died in front of him…

“Lucky chap, collapsed face down, ass up in the air. What a way to go surrounded by friends and doing what he loved, out on the golf course!”

His wife then finds her comfortable but somewhat pressured life in front of the cameras beginning to crumble. Great angst, anger and drink-fuelled utterances delightfully delivered by Janie Dee, while her irascible and equally drink-fuelled hubby, superbly portrayed along with wonderful comic timing by Patrick Ryecart, is among the night’s highlights.

Now in the veteran category and recently seen as the Duke of Norfolk in The Crown (Netflix) and Sir Hugh Bodrugan in Poldark (ITV), he has lost none of his enthusiasm or that special rapport with his audience and the cast.

Cue making the most of knocking a glass to the floor and helping to clear up…

Also in the cast are Charlie Brooks, well known for her role as Janine Butcher in Eastenders, who is joined by Jack Archer as Leo, Genevieve Gaunt as the nutty and hyper-active PA Amanda, and Jack Sandle as Graeme.

Monogamy takes a little time to prepare all the ingredients but it is a quality recipe and as soon as the mix is cooking the second act sizzles deliciously.

It’s all one long continuous scene, as Betts likes to write, and it works all the better for it with the audience soon getting to know the characters, to warm to them and then they can sit back to enjoy and be fully entertained.

Malvern was the first night of the play’s UK tour and deservedly it was warmly and well received.

It’s sure to be the case as it wends its way around the country and when it takes up a limited five-week season at London’s Park Theatre in June.