In ROLEPLAY Justin Lazenby and his live-in girlfriend Julie-Ann Dobson are planning to announce their engagement at a dinner party for each other’s parents. Julie-Ann wants everything to be perfect for her conservative mother and father. When she discovers that a dessert fork is missing, she panics and leaves the flat, hoping she can buy a new one before her parents arrive. When a woman climbs on to their balcony, however, the couple have a lot more than cutlery to worry about. The woman, Paige Petite, is desperate to escape from her boyfriend, gangster boxing promoter Rudy Raven, who told one of his thugs, Micky Rale, to hold her captive in his penthouse. After searching frantically, Micky finds Paige hiding out in Justin’s apartment and the two uninvited guests impose themselves upon the hospitality of the young couple. In addition, Justin’s drunken mother, Arabella, arrives and provides a sharp contrast to Julie-Ann’s bigoted parents. As personalities clash it becomes clear that the two young people are bound together more by the idea of romance than true love. ROLEPLAY is the third and final play in a series called DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. The other two plays are GAMEPLAN and FLATSPIN. The comedies opened on 7 September, 2002 at the Duchess Theatre in London and ran until 11 January, 2003. They are entirely separate plays, but were written to be performed either individually or as a trilogy.
