"The London Classic Theatre have established a reputation for quality drama and their visit last week to the Theatre Royal with Hugh Leonard’s gem Love in the Title added to that reputation. This was a fine addition to the Imagine Festival and although I had seen this Abbey’s original production in 1999, the three excellent actresses wove for me that romance of magic that theatre bestows on its devotees.

There is a complicated twist to the story as three women meet at an intersection of their lives as grandmother, her daughter and the granddaughter. But such is Leonard’s skill with words that this conceit is easy to follow, once you accept that the youngest on stage is the grandmother. In a way it is a memory play where life had to be lived forward into a future but understood backwards.

We get the embarrassment of memory and the pain of recall and the everyday sense of family where family is represented by past, future and present. We see hopes, dreams and disappointments as a mother tells a daughter she is disappointed for her not in her. We laugh at innocent hops where a child/grandmother says - a fellow who promises a dolly mixture of sun, moon and stars, will never disappoint. Many, many of the lines ring true and you could sense the intake of breath and recognition.

That was the power of Leonard’s play and the fine work of Michael Cabot as director, Annemarie Gaillard as the youngest grandmother, Cat, with her bubbly enthusiasms and lies about her lack of a past. Julie Hale (who plays Terry Deegan in Fair City) was a prickly snobbish achiever of a mother Triona. Lisa Burrows brought a modern freedom to the grandmother Katie.

This company had the honour to present the UK premiere of this play and long may they continue to visit Waterford with such excellent productions."