Is it really the exciting, chemically charged love affairs that move us most, or the simple, mundane moments of a relationship?
Alan Ayckbourn presents us with an endearing retired couple, celebrating their wedding anniversary by eating pilchards in bed together and discussing the damp patch on the ceiling.
In contrast, their son's ridiculous high-octane, public lampshade fight with his girlfriend seems hardly worth watching for its real emotional content.
One single night, three bedrooms, four very different couples at different points in their relationship. The stage looks as though the wall has been ripped off the side of any average, middle-class household, exposing all to the viewer's eye.
It might sound raunchy- a play entirely about bedrooms- but this is real life and no one's having any sex. They'll be lucky to get any peace in the game of musical beds which unfolds throughout the night.
The play revolves around the relationship of Trevor and Susannah, who seem to think that the world revolves around them. Causing a scene at their friends' party, their furious row results in Trevor kissing his old girlfriend Jan.
Susannah flees to Trevor's parents' house, just as they are settling down for an early night. Trevor meanwhile goes over to Jan's to apologise to her husband.
The two unlucky-in-lovers spread chaos and dissent in every quarter, trying everybody's patience with their inability to see beyond their own misfortune.
The night wears on, and nobody's going to get any sleep.
This seamless production is immersive, though the acting fell flat a couple of times where it could have been funny, and I couldn't help feeling disappointed at some of the characters' more superficial moments.
On the whole, Bedroom Farce is incredibly good at feeding you a constant supply of laughs, so that you don't notice the pathos underlying the relationships on stage until you leave the theatre, feeling strangely hollow.
Breakdown in communication has immediate comedic value, but it gets a person thinking: why does everyone assume other people's relationships are more exciting than theirs?
Here the intimacy of couples' bedrooms is thrown open to the audience's examination. They are talking, eating, sleeping, not having sex. There is no mystery about it. It's so real, it's riveting.