Four typical Ayckbourn misfits are playing a Dungeons and Dragons type game in a suburban living room.
Stanley,
Hazel, Warren and Rick make the weekly escape from their real life
nightmares into a role-playing board game peopled by dragons and
monsters. A safe world where the dangers are of their own imagining;
where they are free to become heroes of their own devising.
But
how clear is the dividing line between what they choose to be and what
they really are? What would it take for them to lose sight of it
altogether?All it requires is Marcie. Loveable, understanding,
sympathetic Marcie - destined to become the new demon to haunt their
wildest dreams. Marcie, who is escaping from her violent husband, blows
the foursome apart. Confusion ensues, secrets spill and, by the end of
the play, all of the characters are irrevocably transformed.
Wildest Dreams marked Alan Ayckbourn's Royal Shakespeare Company debut at the Barbican Theatre.