Double Booked

I’m told that author-performer Ginny Davis has been developing this as a radio play, and that’s what it feels like; one that would be perfect for the same Radio Four afternoon audience who tune in to Woman’s Hour with devotion.

It’s Davis’ third one-woman comedy about family life, in which she is stay-at-home mum Ruth Rich, juggling her children’s school and social commitments with the demands of her dementia-suffering mother, flirtatious teachers and neighbourly one-upmanship.

It’s thin but easygoing material – the conflict that the entire piece hinges on is a Friday evening scheduling clash between a school concert and dinner with her mum – and it’s laced with wry humour about the mundanities of domesticity.

You really worry for Ruth’s self-esteem that she allows herself to feel undermined by a surgically-enhanced MILF who confuses Virginia Woolf with Virginia Wade, but – despite being a tad stiff as a performer and a lot of unnecessary prop busyness – Davis makes her a likeable enough character to spend an hour with.