LIKE many wives, Miriam is a victim of her husband's passion for cricket. When he plays a good innings for the suburban side he captains, he relives it stroke by stroke that night in bed; when he flunks it, there's no rest either, for he then reprises every shot as it should have been played, writes Chris Gray.

Miriam takes centre stage in Richard Harris's 1979 hit stage comedy Outside Edge, whose characters later re-emerged in the popular TV series of the same name. At the Mill at Sonning until September 9, this silly but sympathetic woman, ably portrayed by Jacqueline Clarke, once more delights with her calm acceptance of her own situation with husband Roger (Robin Parkinson) occasional acts of fiery rebelliousness excepted and her willingness when possible to soothe the ruffled feathers of others.

And there are plenty of ruffled feathers to be seen among the varied group who turn out for West End CC. For this is a play rather less about cricket than the tangled love lives of the players. While its focus is the tussle between the team and their arch-rivals on the pitch, its concern is really the battle of the sexes.

Most messed up, perhaps, is boozy batsman Bob (Brendan Hooper) who is torn between the demands of his ex-wife and his duty to the imperious Ginnie (Lynette Edwards), the woman who replaced her. His decision to drop out of the game to attend to the former looks to have been a disastrous one when the latter decides to make one of her very rare visits to the ground for an afternoon of sun-bathing no sandwich making for her!

Miriam's assistance on that front comes in the towering form of randy bricklayer Maggie (Anita Graham), when she can drag herself away which isn't often from lascivious embraces with her diminutive husband Kevin (Terence Frisch), the team's star bowler. A comic creation to relish, Maggie is seen at her best in her well-judged put-downs of the side's oily Lothario Dennis (Colin Starkey).

Completing the line-up of characters are taciturn, stuck-up pleased-with-himself young solicitor Alex (an impressive stage debut from Chaz Oldham) and his dolled-up squeeze Sharon (Amber Edlin), an Estuary English-speaking pick-up from his disco outing the previous evening who quivers with terror at being so far out of her social depth.

As ever at Sonning, the set is marvellous, with Katy Tuxford giving us a down-at-heel pavilion correct in every detail and so realistic I almost felt like wandering over to the bar and pouring myself a beer.

The production offers no visual clues about whether director David Warwick has set the action at the time when the play was written. In the end, I decided that he must have done. With much use of the club's pay phone by affluent characters who in later years would have certainly been swinging on mobiles, Outside Edge is a play that must remain rooted in a quieter, more civilised past.