For one night only members of the Foursight Theatre Company will be bringing their touring show Can Any Mother Help Me? to the Oxford Playhouse. This evocative and touching new play, inspired by the best-selling book of the same name by Jenna Bailey, is already being hailed a quite exceptional production.

It’s a collection of moving stories set in the 20th century, long before the Internet, when writing a reader’s letter to a magazine was one of the only ways to highlight your problems.

Abandoned by her husband a young mother of four is left in a lonely Irish village with very little money. Starved of all education and human contact this benighted woman wrote to The Nursery World magazine under the pen name of Ubique, with a heartfelt plea – “Can any mother help me?”

From the responses to her letter, she recruited 24 young mothers and created a virtual community of desperate housewives who named their community the Co-operative Correspondence Club, or CCC as it became know.

It wasn’t long before this mutual support system was able to provide mutual support, practical advice and provide the mothers with a platform to advertise and buy second hand prams, cots, clothing, toys books, in fact anything a mother might need.

As time progressed, the topics the women discussed went way beyond the household grind. They tackled issues such as sex, sexism, female orgasms, racism, education and special needs. CCC continued until 1990 when the letters were donated to the archives of Sussex University – later to become the base for Jenna Bailey’s best-selling book.

The Foursight Theatre Company use the women’s own words to tell their stories. The effect is a series of interwoven, interactive, individual narratives, which offer a gripping, touching and often humorous take on the 20th century.

Can Any Mother Help Me? will be staged at the Oxford Playhouse on Tuesday at 7.30pm. Tickets can be booked by ringing the theatre box office on: 01865 305305.