AMBLESIDE Players are all in a 'lather' about their next production.

The talented thespians slip deftly into comic mode for Lathered Up, Lynn Brittney's comedy about the hilarious dirty tricks campaign behind rival prime-time television soaps.

Directed by Moira Rowlinson, the play focuses on Magenta Place, a prime time TV soap, which is in trouble. Ratings have fallen like a stone and the writers can't come up with any new plots. After some advice from Natalie Thorpe, leading lady of a rival soap, Grover's Avenue, and deemed 'The World's Most Famous Northern Woman,' they swing into action and hire Sasha Martindale, a notorious production consultant. Sasha turns out to be an eccentric genius, whose drastic actions turn around the fortunes of the failing soap, but not without some casualties along the way. What follows is a ratings war between the two soaps and a whole load of devious dealing.

Not all is as it seems and the line between reality and fiction blur in side splitting style.

Lathered Up runs for five nights from Tuesday to Saturday, October 25-29 (8pm) at the Kelsick Centre.

Tickets are available online at www.amblesideplayers.co.uk or from Fred’s Bookshop, Ambleside.