A FASCINATING morality play is promised by Bingley Little Theatre for its latest production.

The amateur theatre company will portray charity, humility and kindness in Sutton Vane’s 1923 drama Outward Bound.

The play was praised by Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington when it was revived on the London stage several years ago.

He wrote approvingly: “I warm to any play that advocates charity, humility and kindness over bullying pomposity and social pretence.”

Bingley Little Theatre bosses believe it is hard to imagine an audience failing to warm to that theme in 2017.

Outward Bound is directed by experienced Little Theatre hands Mark Brown and David Templeton.

It brings together a mixed bag of characters, gathered in the saloon of a mysterious liner, bound for a destination that is unknown at the outset, but which eventually becomes apparent as the play unfolds.

A spokesman said: “Though at once stereotypical and incongruous – an over-bearing business man, a vicar from an East End parish, a char-lady – these people acquire substance and depth as their life-histories are revealed, drawn out of them by the strange figure of the Examiner.

“This is a play that engages the audience’s emotions and invites them to make some fine moral judgements about human behaviour.”

Outward Bound, though laced with observational humour, is a play that asks some serious questions.

It dates from a time – the period immediately following the Great War – when, though hostilities had ended, a pervasive sense of moral and social crisis lingered on.

Like George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, it is one of a number of dramas written at that time that took a searching look at how human individuals and human societies get themselves into a mess.

The spokesman said: “What goes round, comes round: it may be time for us to take another long, hard look at ourselves.”

Outward Bound runs at Bingley Little Theatre from Monday, February 7 to Saturday, March 4, nightly at 7.30pm.

Visit the venue, Bingley Arts Centre, any weekday from 11am to 3.30pm to book tickets.

Alternatively, visit ticketsource.co.uk/bingley-artscentre or call 01274 567983.

The Bingley Little Theatre season will continue on April 10-15 with performances of Henrik Ibsen’s classic A Doll’s House.

Alan Ayckbourn’s Sisterly Feelings, a comedy of sexual manners with a twist, runs from May 22 to 27.

The season finishes with Moliere’s classic farce The Hypochondriac from July 3-8.