IT’S a straight-forward premise – a Parish Council planning committee meets to discuss an application to build a video store on a disused field and along the way their individual prejudices are revealed.

And it works too, with writer David Hutchinson bringing to life a range of characters who are, for the most part, well-developed and intriguing.

Laura Grant is by turns funny and touching as the middle-aged floosy Jackie – sometimes quite literally as she energetically gropes committee chair Simon (Robert Gilbert), a man torn between a sense of duty and the desire for something more meaningful.

Some of the messages are a bit ham-fisted, with the elderly Mrs Battersby’s prejudices coming across as far too obvious.

Despite this, she is played expertly by Jessica Buxton, who draws out the fragility beneath her apparently robust personality.

The best moments are the most subtle – Philip’s under-reaction when he discovers his wife Jackie’s infidelity and Simon’s gentle melancholy over having never expecting enough out of life.