VIDEO: Watch Theatre 48 talk to Phil Hewitt/SussexWorld about their Horsham return

The piece focuses on three sisters Teresa, Mary and Catherine who come together before their mother's funeral, each haunted by their own demons. The play looks at how each sister deals with the death and how it directly affects them. As Alex Bohan, who is playing the middle of the three sisters, says, the three each have different memories of the same events, causing constant bickering about whose memories are true. “As the three women get together after years of separation, all their hidden lies and self-betrayals are about to reach the surface,” Alex says.

The show comes as the company continues to emerge from the difficult times that we all endured: “We had a drop-off in numbers. People were reluctant to get back to doing theatre so we waited a little while before doing our first production back, in May last year. We did A Bunch Of Amateurs, the Ian Hislop play and we had a fantastic response, the best response to anything we have ever done. There was a real appetite for it and everyone was really excited to see it. And we were all excited to be back as a company and to be back rehearsing and to be back at the Capitol. It went really well. It was hilarious. It was just so funny. It had taken us a long time to find the right play to come back with. We wanted something that would lift everyone's spirits after the terrible couple of years we'd all had, especially as for some people this was their first experience back at the theatre for several years.”

Usually the company would do two productions a year, one at the Capitol and one away from the Capitol but with reduced numbers and with financial pressures, for the moment they are opting to focus just on the one show a year at the Capitol: “With such a small society it's very hard for us to do multiple shows. If things pick up then we would obviously like to do more, but also you've just got to think of the expense. We try to keep the expense down as much as possible. It would be nice to be back on the big stage at the Capitol but at the moment we can only afford the studio. We try to do everything as sustainably as possible. We have a very small storage space now and we try to keep our sets as simple as possible and to upcycle or borrow wherever we can.”

And again, choice of play is crucial. Alex is convinced they have got the right one again with The Memory of Water: “Three sisters on the eve of their mother’s funeral might not sound very funny but it really is. It's a dark comedy and it's just so well observed. Anyone with a sibling will recognise just how accurate it is, particularly with the sisterly squabbles that we have. There's a lot of pathos and a lot of mystery that all help keep the audience engaged but there are also plenty of belly laughs and some really punchy one-liners. It is great fun.”