‘Let’s crack on, shall we?’ Richard lights a cigarette then balances an A4 pad on his knee. He looks round at everyone with a smile. ‘Scenario?’ he says, pencil poised.

‘Operating theatre,’ shouts Edward.

Richard nods and writes it down. ‘Setting?’

‘Rome, 1945,’ says Imogen.

‘Why not?’ says Richard, writing it down. ‘We can have fun with the accent.’

‘1945?’ says Edward.

‘The year we were born,’ offers Isobel.

‘Theme?’ Richard doesn’t look up from his pad.

‘Unrequited love!’ shouts Martin, eyes wide, colour high in his freckled cheeks.

‘We had that last year,’ says Imogen, on the verge of boredom again.

‘Not last year,’ says Edward, ‘it was definitely revenge last year – Imogen got cross at Richard even though he was only acting.’

‘You were alarmingly hateful, Richard,’ Imogen says.

‘Unrequited love it is then.’ Richard glances at his watch. ‘Title?’

‘Open Heart Surgery,’ shouts Martin in another explosion of enthusiasm.

‘Or Love under the Knife?’ suggests Edward.

‘What about Wounded Heart?’ dares William.

‘Marvellous, William,’ says Richard, ‘Wounded Heart it is.’

As everyone claps, William gets the feeling that they’ve all been waiting for him to say something, simply so they can all agree with it.

By 11 a.m., when Flo enters the sitting room preceded by the smell of baking, the play is written and William has radically revised his understanding of what it means to write a play. He’s a female nurse in love with the handsome doctor (Richard) who in turn is in love with another nurse (Imogen), who is in love with the patient being operated upon (Edward). Martin is a patient in love with William’s character. The only consolation of being cast as a woman is that William won’t be called upon to show his arse or his todger.

The day passes in a frenzy of improvisation, dressing up, good-humoured arguments, and the filching of furniture and household items. The operating table is an old door from the barn balanced on dining room chairs. A selection of flannels from a selection of bathrooms are surgical masks. Operating instruments are gathered from the cutlery drawer, and the patient’s heart is a piece of liver out of the fridge, donated by a reluctant but forbearing Flo.