A new staging of Alan Ayckbourn’s Things We Do For Love is at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday, April 26, prior to an eight-week tour.

Natalie Imbruglia makes her UK drama debut as she stars alongside Claire Price, Edward Bennett and Simon Gregor in a long-awaited revival of one of the most popular plays of the nineties, directed by Laurence Boswell.

In South West London, Nikki and her fiancé Hamish move in with Nikki's old school-friend Barbara, who lives in immaculate order on the middle floor of her converted house. Hamish is everything that Barbara despises.

But their mutual, instant distaste for each other is a hostility which hides deeper feelings; feelings that could destroy an engagement and a friendship, creating repercussions for everyone - including the downstairs lodger, lovelorn postman and part-time plumber Gilbert, who has a secret fixation with his landlady.

Award-winning actress Claire Price plays the role of Barbara, returning to Bath after starring in Fifty Words last year in the Ustinov Studio’s American Season. Amongst her many stage credits she recently starred in The Winter’s Tale and The Daughter in Law at Sheffield Crucible, The Power of Yes at the National Theatre, Way of the World at Chichester Festival Theatre and Private Lives at Hampstead Theatre. She last performed in the Theatre Royal’s Main House in Hard Times in 1997. On television, she played DS Siobhan Clarke in two series of Rebus and Alison in two series of The Knock, as well as appearances in Dalziel & Pascoe, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Doctors.

Playing the role of Nikki is world famous actress and singer Natalie Imbruglia, who began her career in the globally successful Australian soap-opera Neighbours, where she played Beth Brennan.

She went on to become one of the biggest pop sensations in Europe. Her smash hit single Torn, and the subsequent album, Left of the Middle, sold seven million copies worldwide and won her three Grammy nominations and two Brit Awards.

She co-starred in the 2003 film Johnny English with Rowan Atkinson and made her leading actress debut in the 2009 film Closed for Winter. Things We Do For Love marks her UK drama debut.

Edward Bennett plays the role of Hamish. His many previous performances at the Theatre Royal Bath include Measure for Measure and Habeas Corpus in The Peter Hall Company’s 2006 Season; Pygmalion and Little Nell in The Peter Hall Company’s 2007 Season; In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play at the Ustinov Studio, directed by Laurence Boswell in 2012; and The School for Scandal, directed by Jamie Lloyd in the Theatre Royal’s 2012 Summer Season.

His film and television credits include War Horse, Above Suspicion, Miranda and Silent Witness.

PlayingGilbert is Simon Gregor, whose previous roles at the Theatre Royal Bath include the Fool in King Lear last summer alongside David Haig, and Grumio in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s staging of The Taming of the Shrew with Lisa Dillon and David Caves, a production which toured to Bath in 2012.

His television credits include The Borgias, Da Vinci’s Demons, Ripper Street, New Tricks, The Bill, Mine All Mine and Drop the Dead Donkey.

Director Laurence Boswell has been the Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio since 2011, where his seasons of UK premieres have received huge national acclaim. He is also an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His West End credits include Ben Elton's Popcorn; Up For Grabs starring Madonna in her London stage debut; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg starring Eddie Izzard, which received a Tony Award nomination for Best Director following its Broadway transfer; and This Is Our Youth starring Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhaal.

He will direct the UK premiere of Intimate Apparel at the Ustinov Studio as part of the 2014 American Season.

This  marks Alan Ayckbourn’s 55th year as a playwright. He has written 78 plays and directed more than 300 productions.

Things We Do for Love, his 51st play, received its world premiere at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre in April 1997 followed by its London premiere in the West End in March 1998.

In recent years, Alan Ayckbourn was inducted into American Theatre’s Hall of Fame; he received the 2010 Critics’ Circle Award for Services to the Arts, and he became the first British playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was knighted in 1997 for services to theatre.

To book tickets contact the box office on 01225 448844 or visit www.theatreroyal.org.uk