ONE of television's best-loved couples is reuniting for a comic tale of marital life that comes to Ipswich later in the year.

By Jo Macdonald

Entertainment editor

joanne.macdonald@eveningstar.co.uk

ONE of television's best-loved couples is reuniting for a comic tale of marital life that comes to Ipswich later in the year.

The talents of John Challis and Sue Holderness, better known as second-hand car dealer Boycie and his long suffering wife Marlene in Only Fools and Horses, have been combined again for a new touring production of Alan Ayckbourn's How The Other Half Loves.

The hilarious production, from the pen of the playwright regarded as the master of comedic writing, will take to the stage at the Regent from August 11 to 16. Tickets for the shows go on sale on Monday.

This laugh-a-minute suburban comedy focuses on three couples. There are Fiona and Frank who are having a few marriage problems not helped by Fiona forgetting their wedding anniversary.

Then there's Frank's social-climbing colleague Bob and his world-weary wife Teresa who are also having problems.

And completing the hat-trick are the socially inept William and Mary who, unaware of their friends' marital issues, accept invitations to dinner from both couples on consecutive nights. It is a mistake that leads to hilarious consequences.

John and Sue star as Frank and Fiona in the production. It will be a great opportunity to see the pair back together as they became one of TV's cult couples having starred as Boycie and Marlene in Only Fools and Horses for several years.

Boycie was famed as the well-off and arrogant car dealer who bred tropical fish and boasted of having a holiday cottage in Cornwall. Meanwhile his wife Marlene had earned herself a reputation as the Peckham bicycle because of her inability to turn men down. However, she had Boycie wrapped round her finger and was besotted with her dog Duke before finally getting pregnant with their son Tyler. Del Boy was both Boycie's mate and Marlene's ex-boyfriend.

John and Sue are joined in the cast of How The Other Half Loves by Richard Kane, Lavinia Bertram, Carli Norris and Gary Turner. The production is directed by Mark Piper and produced in association with the Theatre Royal and the Churchill Theatre, in Bromley.

With ingenious staging providing a backdrop for unfortunate blunders, merciless misunderstandings and at times total, utter confusion as three married couples discover the true danger of extra-marital affairs, How The Other Half Loves is Ayckbourn at his very best.

n How The Other Half Loves is at Ipswich Regent from August 11 to 16. Tickets go on sale at 10am on Monday price £11.50 to £23 (tickets 2 for 1 on opening night) and will be available at the Central Box Office, Princes Street, Ipswich, by calling 01473 433100 or online at www.ipswich-ents.co.uk