IT takes something special to turn a regular visit to the theatre into an unforgettable experience and being involved in Alan Ayckbourn's Private Fears in Public Places will definitely be one of the highlights of my year.

Director Laurie Sansom spent years working with the writer at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and was out to impress his old boss who attended the opening night at the Royal & Derngate.

The Northampton venue is staging an Ayckbourn season to celebrate the playwright's 70th birthday and Private Fears couldn't have been a greater tribute to the acclaimed author.

The staging was both imaginative and innovative and a delight to anyone wanting something fresh out of a theatrical production.

The capacity of the Royal stage has been slashed from 450 seats to less than 150 with every seat becoming integral to the set on stage.

Audiences are led through the auditorium and onto the stage where you'll find yourself seated on squashy sofas, at a hotel bar, in a coffee shop or, for the more nimble, on cushions on the floor.

Around the stage are six small sets, snapshots taken from the lives of our six characters and we sit among them as the play is performed. It's probably the most intimate you'll ever get with an actor without personal introductions being made.

With some of the cast already on stage when the audience arrive it's difficult to know who is the paid professional. We all feel like silent extras, voyeurs peering in to other people's lives.

Throughout the play each character's rather pathetic life touches that of another.

There's the philosophical, when pushed, barman Ambrose (a touching performance by Kim Wall) who listens to the dismal life stories of his customers and then goes home to cope with his cantankerous and sick old father.

The new carer he employs to watch over dad when he's at work is the prim Charlotte who outwardly appears a religious zealot, dressed down and oft to quoting the bible – but does she have a dark side !

Her day job is as secretary for emotionally frustrated estate agent Stewart. He spends his days trying to sell homes nobody wants before going home to TV dinners and a life of solitude that is only enlivened by videos loaned by Charlotte.

His sister Imogen, who lives with him, tries to solve her loneliness issues with a series of blind dates while childhood sweethearts Nicola and Dan struggle to save their relationship.

It's not as bleak as it sounds. There's lots of sharply observed one-liners that make Private Fears very much a bitter-sweet comedy.

We're taken behind the lace curtains into the lives of others and, while it has moments of intrusiveness, we feel, sitting up there among the performers and their stories, part of their world.

Christopher Harper's lethargic and self-satisfied Dan is a familiar stereotype of a man too long in a relationship.

"I hope you're going to be slightly more dynamic when we're married," says an exasperated Nicola. It's easy to empathise with Ruth Gibson's increasingly despondent fiancée who, like many in this compelling drama, is a sad victim of circumstance.

Lucy Briers has the same excellent deadpan delivery of her famous father, actor Richard, turning quite innocuous lines and gestures into hugely funny barbed retorts.

Matthew Cottle, as Stewart, excels as the lonely middle-aged every-man who is never likely to succeed in life or love while Laura Doddington invites sympathy as an on-the-shelf Bridget Jones.

How does Sansom better this ? He's set himself the task of building a working swimming pool on the stage for Ayckbourn's next play, Man of the Moment which opens at the venue on July 27!

Private Fears In Public Places runs until July 11. For tickets call the box office 01604 624811 or online www.royalandderngate.co.uk