The final act in Huddersfield-based theatre company Dick and Lottie’s 10th anniversary celebrations will see the Alan Ayckbourn satire Drowning on Dry Land at the Lawrence Batley Theatre from Tuesday.

The play is particularly apt for audiences immersed in today’s instant celebrity culture. It was created at the height of reality show Big Brother’s popularity and examines the concept of B listers, famous for being minor celebrities but not much else.

Director John Cotgrave says the play was chosen because it was written in the year in which Dick and Lottie was founded. But that wasn’t the only consideration. As he explained: “I always think about what the audience will like to watch. I have got all Ayckbourn’s plays on my bookcase and I think ‘which one will challenge the company, which one would I like to work on, and which one are the audiences going to want’.”

In this, its anniversary year, the company, which is dedicated to Ayckbourn works, has already performed Man of the Moment, Life of Riley, Relatively Speaking and an Absolute Ayckbourn readathon. Some productions have proved to be more challenging than others. For Man of the Moment the technical crew had to re-create an outdoor swimming pool, complete with 8,000 litres of water.

“Drowning on Dry Land,” said John, “is relatively straight-forward and despite having the word ‘drowning’ in the title doesn’t involve any water at all.”

It will be the last of the anniversary year productions.

John, who worked with Ayckbourn back in 2000/1, says the anniversary productions have been well supported. The last two were sell-outs - a tribute to both Dick and Lottie (taken from the names of characters mentioned but never seen in some of Ayckbourn’s plays) and Ayckbourn’s intelligent observational writing.

As John says: “Alan is a bums-on-seats playwright and very popular with audiences. When I worked with him and became friends, I got to watch him direct, saw his work first hand and realised there was something people really really liked about his plays.

“His skill is in capturing human drama and humour and holding it up to the world so that people recognise it.”

Drowning on Dry Land can be seen from Tuesday, November 4 until Saturday, November 8, at 7.45pm (matinee on Saturday at 2pm) Tickets are from £6 to £9 from 01484 430528 or www.thelbt.org