Ever one for challenges, often to do with location or technical matters, Alan Ayckbourn set himself a more unusual one in 1978’s Joking Apart. This was to build a successful play around a truly contented couple — characters generally thought hopelessly undramatic. He achieved his ambition admirably — as director Sally Hughes’s well-managed revival at Sonning again shows. The play’s dark-hued tone, though, particularly in its later stages, might surprise those who expect fun untinged with sadness at this popular dinner theatre.

The focus of the drama is the sprawling garden of prosperous businessman Richard (Brooks Livermore) and partner Anthea (Cal Jaggers) which we visit on special occasions over 12 years up to the present, at intervals of four years. The pair are so outward-going and hospitable that this cannot fail to stir envy and resentment in their friends, a group we get to know rather well as they gather for each event. Only their pal Brian (Paul Chesterton) rings the changes, with a different young squeeze every time (all played by Anna Doolan). Of one it is said: “An art student — but quite pleasant.” Thus is revealed Ayckbourn’s instinctive gift for supplying exactly the right comic nuance.

Richard’s dull-dog Scandinavian business partner Sven (Nick Wilton) is resentful of his effortless superiority in all aspects of life, including tennis. When the former Finnish junior champion thinks he has for once got the better of Richard on the court, it turns out that he has been playing with his left hand. “At least you paid me the compliment of not hopping on one leg as well,” he fumes.

For her part, Sven’s wife Olive (Lynette McMorrough) is deeply angered by Anthea’s ability to maintain a svelte-like figure while seemingly eating everything she wants. “I could kill her!” she repeatedly complains — to greater comic effect each time.

More deserving of our sympathy, perhaps, are the local vicar Hugh (Harry Gostelow) and his increasingly troubled wife Louise (Catherine Skinner). In days gone by, Richard’s house had been the vicarage; now the incumbent lives in a new property in a corner of its garden. He and his wife are in sad circumstances in their family life; reports on the doings of their only son grow more alarming as the years roll by — “He’s eight now, and when he pinches you it really hurts.” They must also come to terms with Hugh’s tendresse for Anthea. He blurts this out amid a torrent of rapture that supplies another of the play’s dramatic high points.

Joking Apart continues until April 16.

Tickets: www.millatsonning.com or 0118 969 8000)