A play encapsulating Barnes life and the people who live there will be the first to be performed in its newly refurbished arts centre.

Halfway to the Sun is a warm-hearted comedy drama featuring a cast which includes Christine Lohr, who played Downton Abbey’s Mrs Bird.

Written by Susan Casanove, who also plays protagonist Jodie, the script centres on characters who live their lives through television.

Casanove says: “It is a play about escaping reality. It is about three women who escape reality in different ways.”

The character she plays is obsessed with Professor Brian Cox and frustrates her housemate Neil because she fails to appreciate that she lives in one of the most beautiful parts of London.

Neil’s lover Anna will only sleep with him on the condition it is played out in the style of The Apprentice and Josie’s mother Tessa turns up in Barnes hoping to catch a glimpse of Gyles Brandreth Casanove says: “It’s also about relationships and two housemates living together and how two people can get on each other’s nerves but also need each other in a strange way.

“The inspiration came from knowing a couple of people who are really into celebrities and I wanted to explore this obsession people can have with people they’ve never met and what’s behind that and the need to live out part of their lives through others.

“When we did the read through we all fell about laughing – it’s nothing too serious or dark.

“Hopefully the audience will find it as funny as we did when we did the read through.”

Halfway to the Sun; OSO Arts Centre, Barnes, SW13 0LF; October 1 to 5; 7.30pm; £10 to £12 ticketsource.co.uk/osoarts.