Our little secrets revealed....

There is something remarkably revealing as the piece unfolds.

Award-winning director Simon Godwin directs a new production of Sam Holcroft’s darkly-funny Rules For Living at Brighton Theatre Royal from Tuesday-Saturday October 17-21.

Jolyon Coy, who plays Matthew, said: “You read it and you think ‘Well, I don’t know how I am going to play that!’ and then you start doing it and you realise it is actually you!”

Everyone creates their own rules for living.

But what happens when an extended family gathers for a traditional Christmas dinner, and each of them rigidly follows those rules?

As the drinks flow and the obligatory games intensify, family resentments rise and relationships are pulled apart with a bang.

“Sam has written a play which she has set on Christmas Day, not that it is a Christmas play. But it is just that Christmas Day is the day when everything unravels as it so often does. There are so many tensions and the stakes are so high...

“It is about this family coming together, Matthew (me) and Adam and their partners. Edith, the matriarch in the play, is wanting to make sure that everything is perfect for Christmas Day because the father has had a short stint in hospital and is coming home today.

“He is a very domineering figure in our lives. Everyone is trying to make everything perfect for him, which of course it can’t be – because as soon as you try to make everything perfect, you know it won’t be.

“But what is brilliant is that the rules are projected onto the stage, the rules that each character has, their coping strategies.

“Their ways of deflecting things and keeping calm are shown to the audience so that the audience are one step ahead.

“For instance, my character has to sit to lie.