The play opened in the Starkadders’ dusty, expansive and candlelit farm kitchen. Enter young Flora Poste, a well-educated orphan of limited means seeking sanctuary with her weird country relatives the Starkadders.

Elegant and eloquent Flora, played superbly by Savannah Congdon, illuminated the stage. The contrast between her and her in-laws was indeed stark.

One by one, with brilliant comic eccentricity, anxiety and emotional turmoil, the family revealed its individuals and secrets. Flora’s narration, supported by a chorus of rural characters, had us wondering why the family and its retainers made no effort to escape their assorted miseries.

Enter Great Aunt Ada Doom, brought to powerful, maniacal and gloriously comic life by Viv Raeside. Ah, so that’s why! The matriarch ruled with an iron hand and saw no reason why the family should ever leave her, or Starkadder farm, especially when the threat of hellfire and damnation hung over them.

But Flora could see a way out for her trapped relations. Act Two transported us to the ballroom at the country pile of the Hawk-Monitors. The whiff of silage gave way to the potpourri of society life, and Richard claimed Elfine for his bride.

As for the others, Flora enabled their release too from the shackles of their former lives. Even Aunt Ada succumbed to the freedoms proposed, appearing in flying jacket ready for a trip to France.

And for Flora, the hum of a plane’s engine announced the return of Charles, the man she loved. The play ended with a rousing chorus and a standing ovation.

It was elevated to the sublime by the Leakin’ Lentils vibrant music; the costumes – mad, ragged, straw-covered, mud-spattered rural clothing contrasting with beautiful, stylish 1930s fashions - and imaginative staging at the Tilford Institute. Everyone’s performance was vivid, powerful, yet strangely real. Well done Ruth Ahmed and the whole team, another belter!

Alan Goodchild