Time and the Conways, Ilkley Playhouse Runs until Saturday, 7.30pm

TIME and the Conways is one of JB Priestley’s “time plays” and was written in 1937. It is staged in three acts with the first act set in 1919, the second in 1937 and the third returning us to 1919.

In the first act, family members are celebrating the 21st birthday of Kay, a would-be author, who works as a journalist. We also meet her sisters: the youngest, the bright and ingenuous Carol, the blue-stocking Madge and finally the shallow and beautiful Hazel. We also meet their two brothers: Alan, a quiet, decent man, who works as a clerk, and the ebullient Robin, de-mobbed from the Royal Flying Corps with ambitious plans to make money as a salesman. Presiding over the family is the widowed Mrs Conway, theatrical and dominating. There are three outsiders at the party: Joan, a friend of Hazel’s, the family solicitor Gerald, and the ambitious lower class Ernest, who is besotted with Hazel.

By 1937 the family has fallen on hard times: Mrs Conway needs to raise money to continue to live in the large house, and the siblings are at war with each other as to how this is to be done. Ernest, who has married Hazel, and is now a successful businessman has sufficient money to bale her out but makes it clear he will not, and for what reason.

In the final act we return to the birthday party and see how the party-goers had come to make the critical decisions about marriage and their futures that sealed their fate.

The play raises the question we all ask ourselves: “What would have happened if I had not gone to that party or taken that turn in the road?” Out of a sound ensemble cast one must pick out Rachel Conyers as the dominating, theatrical and manipulative Mrs Conway, and Becky Kordowicz as brittle and self-critical Kay. Both give performances that resonate and remain in the minds long after the curtain falls.

By Lesley Matthews