STAGE REVIEW: A Passionate Woman - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Tuesday, March 28 to Saturday, April 1, 2017.

ATTICS are those places at the top of houses where memories, usually junk destined at some stage for the scrapyard, are stored away in tins or cardboard boxes.

Some will be reminders of happy times, others will have been hidden to prevent prying eyes from discovering a dark secret.

That, basically, is the tenet of Kay Mellors' tantalisingly touching play from the stables of Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre.

It’s every inch a thoroughbred and all the better for its briefness - encapsulating, as it does in a two hour time span, a morning of chaos for a northern family as the time approaches for their son’s wedding.

Director Paul Milton is astute in allowing the story to build steadily into a flowing momentum of cross-purposes, all aided by the wonderful set creation of Michael Holt. It’s quite ingenious and uses a revolving stage which propels the action through to a rooftop climax.

It’s all based on an episode of Mellors’ own mother’s life and she has crafted a simple but delightful drama. There are moments when it is teetering on the edge of farce but as it’s all about a person’s perception of life’s relationships the audience is quickly reeled back in.

Led by the excellent and so at ease Liza Goddard as the mother Betty, it’s enriched by several support roles as humour intertwines with pathos - son Mark, played by Antony Eden, father Donald (Russell Dixon) and Hasan Dixon’s ghost of deceased lover Craze.

Betty is a woman with regrets and Goddard tackles her varying emotions with style and substance Dixon, however, creates an enjoyably blunt Yorkshireman who calls a spade a spade and who stands by his marriage vows, even though he can’t present his feelings well. But eventually shows he cares.

By the end it was easy to feel a touch sorry for father, especially as the play does lean heavily on the feminine perspective of married life. At least our playwright does give him the chance to state something of a case for the defence.

He tried, but it seems the die had been cast as far as Betty was concerned in spite of his protestations. Freedom was clearly beckoning on the horizon, as much as the view from a hot air balloon and equally, it was proved, as uplifting.

If you should be clearing out the attic this coming weekend - do so with care!