Darling luvvies search deep inside themselves for laughs

If our interview is any guide, then Sian Jones' upcoming play, Love, Luck and Luvvies, should be a riot of laughs. She and her sidekick, Simon Broad, are on their way to rehearsal - and perhaps already half in character - keeping up a steady patter of witty chatter, replete with bad puns and bon mots.

'This play is what you call a two-hander . . .' ventures Jones.

'Unlike my sex-life,' interjects Broad, who comes across as a manic co-mingling of Priscilla-esque camp and Carry On-style humour.

Jones tries again: 'I play the central character, Katherine Braithwaite, an actress who goes through all sorts of weird adventures, while Simon plays all the other characters, from my mother to an outrageous agent to a Portuguese pervert.' 'A veritable plethora of characters,' says Broad. 'Plethora. Can you spell that? Ple-tho-ra.' And so it goes, Jones valiantly striving to play straight woman in between Broad's torrents of wordplay. If the pair can replicate this energy on stage, they are on a winner.

Jones describes the play - directed by another familiar face on the local theatre scene, Clare Stearns - as 'semi-autobiographical'.

'I spent 10 years as an actress in London,' she says. 'I did a lot of children's theatre, bits and pieces on TV, some repertory work down in Wales. So I have plenty of good material to draw on.