FOUR women, four generations and a host of issues spanning most of the 20th century, that is the challenge which has to be taken on by both actors and audiences of Charlotte Keatley’s award winning play at the Dorchester Arts Centre.

Locally-based Somerleigh Players, under the inspiring leadership of Mel Hooley, have pulled off a remarkable feat in staging this wide-ranging production within the confines of the tiny arts centre in which a cast of four move seamlessly from childhood to old age in a series of leaps of time that keeps the audience on their toes throughout the whole evening.

From childhood games of doctors and nurses to adult choices of career versus marriage and the conflict between single parenthood and personal ambition, the play deals with the changing roles of 20th century women and the age of feminism and sexual equality.

The all-female cast are quite simply amazing in their swift movement from daughters to mothers and grandmothers with only the minimum of costume changes and props to help them to pass through the years.

Kate Gorman, Imogen Clarke, Sharon Cox-Button and Katie Gallego bravely – and very successfully – take on the roles as members of a family who move from age to age and scene to scene in a demanding play that could almost be seen as complicated as life itself.

From playtime to job demands and home-making to retirement, the role of women never rests.

Neither does this drama and it is difficult at times to keep up with the changing scenes and time spans in the restrictive space of the stage.

Set mainly in Lancashire, the action revolves around the four women’s lives as the past is slowly revealed and the different generations deal with dependency, guilt and mutual love in equal measure.

Boyfriends and husbands are talked about but never appear on the stage in a play that lives on long after the curtain falls for the last time, not least due to the performances of the cast who are never less than totally convincing in their roles.