A COMEDY drama is opening the new season at Keighley Playhouse.

Entertaining Angels is being performed at the Devonshire Street venue from September 5 to 10.

Written by Richard Everett and directed by Mike Ellison, the drama is described by the playhouse as "stimulating, provocative and deceptively profound".

A spokesperson says: "This bitter-sweet comedy follows Grace – a recently-widowed vicar’s wife coming to terms with her husband’s passing, the loss of her family home to a potential new incumbent, the return of her missionary sister and a daughter with her own issues. It therefore provides scope for long-hidden secrets to be unearthed and relationships examined.

"As a clergy wife, Grace has spent a lifetime on her best behaviour. Now, following the death of her husband Bardolph, she is enjoying the new-found freedom to do and say exactly as she pleases.

"The return of Grace's eccentric missionary sister prompts some disturbing revelations, which forces Grace to confront her recently-departed husband’s ghost and expose the truth about their marriage.

"Entertaining Angels asks whether God can be trusted to do anything right at all, 'or is the whole thing a divine exercise in trial and error?'.

"Set in a classic English vicarage garden complete with a grass-banked stream and willow it is a funny, touching and genuinely thought-provoking play."

Entertaining Angels began life by opening the main season at the Chichester Festival Theatre – and playing to a record-breaking 26,000 people in just over three weeks.

The spokesperson added: "It was produced by Michael Codron and directed by Alan Strachan, with a magical set designed by Paul Farnsworth which had real grass and flowers – and an actual stream flowing across the apron stage!

"Though we can’t simulate a full stream, we hope people will enjoy our efforts. Following a sell-out UK national tour playing to over 100,000 people, this much-acclaimed play has been published and performed all over the world including Switzerland, Israel, South Africa and New Zealand. And it has enjoyed great success with amateur companies."

To book seats, contact the Keighley Playhouse box office on 07599 890769.

Future productions at the playhouse include Arsenic and Old Lace in October, Comfort and Joy (December), The Lady in the Van (January), Witness for the Prosecution (March), Jack of Diamonds (May) and Sweeney Todd (June).

Season tickets can be renewed or bought, by credit or debit card, by calling the playhouse box office.