"Slipping Backwards and Forwards and Backwards Again..."

I was about 12, I suppose. As a treat, I stayed up late to watch a play on TV. I sat on a squashy brown leather sofa with a lakeland terrier called Flash ( same dog who entered the Cheshire Show, on whim of my mother, only to come 4th out 0f 4, ie. last...but I still have the triumphant 4th prize rosette lurking in some secret drawer...) ...

However, back to the play (although my time slip WAS actually fully in keeping!)

The play was JB Priestley's " Time and the Conways". And I've never forgotten its black and white impact. I was hooked. Priestley's themes were rich ones; there was family ( always a favourite: romance and tragedy plus small/big problems combined) and there was a look at British social/political history, 1919-37. BUT best of all, there were slips in time and shifts in time...and this hugely intrigued....I've no idea now WHO starred that night but that play was haunting and memorable and quite definitely, a TREAT that's glowed ever since...

In later years, I found that Priestley had read JW Dunne's book " Experiment with time". The book played with the theory that all time takes place simultaneously, that present, past and future merge as one. And at 12, this was, (for me watching the play in red dressing gown) a shivery and awe-inspiring idea.....although I suppose as an adult, it's even more so....
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SO when I visited Chester Theatre Club ( http://www.chestertheatreclub.co.uk/ ) this week for Priestley's " Dangerous Corner" ( also a "time slip" story, published 1932, 5 yrs before "Conways" ), I was wondering what this'd be like...

It was a TREAT. Directed by Alison Knott, with finely chosen cast ( this Club ooozes talent) and an excellent 1930's decor ( No Clarice Cliff vase, though, on drawing room shelf; I had a good look!) ...we were kept spellbound by a story crisply told...

AND it was particularly good to see Helen Williams ( as Maud Mockridge) looking stately and glam and chainsmoking in style on gorgeous Art Deco sofa..