If you enjoyed Ladies Day from the Prospect Players two years back you should appreciate this sequel. Your same four girls, played by your same four actors, are off to Oz to spend some more of the fortune each of them won in the original play.

If, however, you thought the first play – both are by Nottingham playwright Amanda Whittington – was a feel-good piece dripping with so much cheap sentiment it made you feel bad, you might not warm to this one.

The funniest bits are the destructively unkind airport announcements (from Val Worth), which parody the real thing, and the scene on the plane, also a parody, with Bill (Bill Todd) and Ben (Iain Strickland), the two cynically honest stewards.

Old stager Vic Roberts seems ill at ease as an un-named beach philosopher with hand-drums. As Bondi *****, the Gay Mardi Gras transvestite, he's a pantomime ugly sister – he even comes out to involve the audience. But he's most convincing as Joe, Jan's back-packing love interest. As Jan, Paula Smith is at her best in her scenes with Joe.

There's an overload of inconsequential dialogue in the first half of the evening and slow development of plot. After the break the dialogue stops drifting and things speed up, especially when Whittington plays the semi-obligatory cancer card.

Some un-snappy scene changing and uncertainty over lines are a pity. But a practical set design and highly effective back projection for scene setting are both excellent. Lighting works well.

Graham Errington directed.

Alan Geary

Ladies Down Under is at the Bonington Theatre till Saturday, 18th February