Deckchairs 4

This is Jean McConnell's fourth volume of Deckchairs plays, each with a cast of two women and requiring only a simple setting. Two are comedies, two dramas, and all display Jean McConnell's keen-eyed view of human nature and of the foibles and fancies of women in particular.

In Garden Pests, two keen gardeners meet in a magnificent garden from which neither intends to go home empty-handed.

Grannies introduces us to Jenny, reluctantly looking after her teenage daughter's baby, and to Barbara, whose desperate love for her grandchild has led her into a very strange situation.

Outdoor Pleasures finds long-suffering Deirdre waiting for an outdoor production of Much Ado About Nothing to start, accompanied by her awkward and far-from-enthusiastic Aunt Tottie.

And Remember Me takes place in a corner of a garden at a wedding reception. Elizabeth and Sarah, who shared a flat many years before, meet for the first time in years, and Sarah seizes her chance to let Elizabeth know what she feels about her actions in the past.