Masks and the faces behind which we hide form the theme for Dragon Fever from the Bungay-based Eastbound Theatre Company.

Masks and the faces behind which we hide form the theme for Dragon Fever from the Bungay-based Eastbound Theatre Company.

Housewife, mother and past punk Rachel (Agnes Lillis) is lumbered with a loser of a husband in Patrick (Mark David Nash), who veers between bullying and pleading as he attempts to juggle an increasingly crisis-hit business and private life.

They are joined for an Oriental-style dinner party to celebrate the Chinese New Year – the Year of the Dragon – by Patrick's more successful brother Ruben (Nick Murray Brown) and his rather Ab Fab wife Kate (Catherine Fitzpatrick-Lay).

As the evening unravels in drunken disagreement and revelations, Rachel comes to realise that all of them, to a greater or lesser degree, only see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear. “You all fail to see me, even when I'm wearing my mask,” Rachel tells them before moving to a dramatic denouement.

Dragon Heart has obvious similarities with Abigail's Party or other Mike Leigh work such as Secrets and Lies, and the intelligent and witty dialogue make this a highly promising debut by Bungay-based writer Ruth Solomon.

In a play directed with pace by Kate MacLean, the cast were all excellent but it was a fine performance by Agnes Lillis, making Rachel perfectly believable as the doormat that turns, that particularly caught the eye.

t This performance at the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich rounded off a short tour that saw packed houses at the Seagull Theatre in Lowestoft and the Old Maltings at Halesworth.