TIME after time, year after year, Salisbury Playhouse delivers outstanding productions.

Joking Apart is no exception.

This brilliant Alan Ayckbourn play sparkles with insightful dialogue, bittersweet revelations and laugh-out-loud hilarity.

Eight excellent actors explore and reveal eleven convincing connected characters, covering their relationships from 1966 to 1978. English middle-class society is dissected and enjoyed by Ayckbourn’s deliciously excruciating precision and perception.

As usual with Salisbury Playhouse the stage set is superb, featuring a suburban back garden with its large tree, convenient summer house, and ageing tennis court – on which much of the drama unfolds.

The Bonfire Night fireworks are realistic, costumes are forensically period-accurate, yet with this wonderful play the actual tennis is always the problem. Miming the shots just looks unrealistic, especially with inconsistent racket sound effects.

A creatively stylish and effective addition to this production is the use of period pop songs, carefully chosen for their apt lyrics. Diana Ross’s You Can’t Hurry Love opens the play and The Carpenters’ Close To You eloquently sets the 1970 scene.

After the interval the impishly chosen You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet and Blondie’s Denis subtly underscore the narrative, while the final song is beautifully spot-on.

Joking Apart runs until March 23.