FOLLOWING the great success of the production of Women in Mind last year which was the winner of the NODA (National Operatic and Dramatic Association) best drama award, the latest production of London Wall marks a bit of a change for Newcastle Emlyn’s Attic Players.

The play is the first period drama it has produced for some years and is a great play.

The action of London Wall is set in a firm of solicitors in 1931, at a time when there were 2.7 million people unemployed in the UK. This dramatic comedy shows the situation many women faced: a life of low-wage drudgery in offices, from which matrimony offered the only escape.

The play is full of strong characters; in particular, it focuses on the dilemma faced by 19-year-old newcomer Pat, who is pursued avidly by the office Casanova and rather less diligently by a downstairs shipping clerk.

As a warning of the awful fate that may await her, we see Miss Janus, still slaving away for three quid a week and with a very uncertain future in the marriage stakes.

There is plenty of humour and the play’s writer, John Van Druten, has some shrewd things to say about sexual double standards and the desire of the boss that every worker becomes "as nearly as possible an automaton or a machine".

London Wall can be seen at the Attic Theatre, Cawdor Hall, Newcastle Emlyn from July 12-15 (curtain at 7.30pm). Tickets can be obtained from the Attic Players website (www.atticplayers.org.uk) or in person at ‘Fair and Fabulous’ in Newcastle Emlyn.