AN AUDIENCE can help or hinder a production, no matter how good the performances of the actors.

So with only 22, largely unresponsive people spread thinly around the Greig Hall recently, the cast had their work cut out just keeping the play alive.

The fact they succeeded is a tribute to the talent and professionalism of the three performers and their ability to keep going in the face of adversity.

They overcame the hall's technical failings as well as the lack of audience response and somehow managed to give three high-class performances.

Kayelle Productions is a new company and Wayward Women, by Simon Andrew Stirling, is their first tour.

It is an odd play, a dark comedy which at times is very moving and at others, simply bizarre.

It opens with three cloaked characters conducting a ritual and goes on to tell a story of New Age sisterhood. As the women explore their pasts and assess their futures, they experiment with witchcraft and, in one scene, talk to their vaginas. Very odd - and no wonder that one of them asks: "Have I joined some loony ladies' club?".

Helen (Kay Little) is a single mum, an abused wife hiding from her ex-husband; Mary (Erin Geraghty) is the older of the three, though not the wiser; and Eve (Sarah Thomas-Lane) a mentally unstable character intent on saving them all.

It is a pity so few people shared the experience in Alcester but those who missed it can see it at Kingsley College, Redditch, tomorrow at 7.30pm. For more details, call 830728.

AT