BACK in 1939, Barbara Brown and some fellow old girls from what was then Highams School, now Woodford County High School, decided to start an amateur dramatic society. Quite amazingly, 70 years on and the Highams Players is still going strong and staying true to its mantra, continue to rehearse in each other’s living rooms.

Last Saturday, the venue of choice was Jean Catmur’s welcoming family home on a tree-lined street in Snaresbrook and the play, Richard Harris’ charming comedy A Foot In The Door, which opens at Wanstead House tonight.

Arriving just as the first half rehearsal was getting into full swing, I sheepishly positioned myself as inconspicuously as possible in Jean’s front room and quickly found myself thoroughly enjoying this privileged private audience. The story follows that May, an elderly and lonely widow, invites various arrogant, fumbling, deceptive, salespeople round to her semi, but unfortunately they all turn up at once, with hilarious consequences, and from the short segment I was privy to, it certainly lives up to its billing.

As the invisible curtain fell, the cast wrenched themselves out of character, relaxed into fits of giggles and almost simultaneously announced that I must think them all mad. Mad no, talented, most certainly!

Speaking to the beaming group during the all-important tea break, it becomes apparent that the Highams Players is much more than your average amateur dramatics society, as the words “family”, “friendly”, “supportive” and “inclusive” are uttered again and again.

Summing it up, Sue Walters, who stars as nymphomaniac keyboard salesperson Jilly Jordon, smiles: “Rehearsing in each other’s houses you have that warmth, you get to know each other’s families from the pictures on the walls, you share a cup of tea and your worries, you don’t just rehearse in a cold hall and then dash off back to your home.”

The drama teacher, who joined the players 21 years ago when she moved to the area, continues: “It’s sort of that missing piece in your life, everyone has work, family, friends, but it’s what keeps you going and what makes you that little bit different from the herd, and we do have lots of fun.”

But the players, which number around 35 members, are much more than the faces you see on stage. Director Rosemary Burton, who joined the company 14 years ago and whose children have both been involved with the company, explains: “It’s a real team. If you’re not acting, you are helping out backstage with sound and lighting, on the box office, making tea, painting, and we all help put up the set and take it down.”

Of course, central to the success of the Highams Players is the “core membership of good people”, people like secretary Jean, who made her debut in The Paper Chain in 1954 and took over as president of the company a few years ago when founding member Barbara Brown sadly died.

Recalling some of her most memorable moments as the lead in The Heiress (1966) and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1984), Jean speaks with great affection for the company, laughing when she compares the old charge of 2s/9d with today’s £7 and clearly moved when she tells me of the great support she has received since her beloved husband Peter, who stage managed and acted as treasury, passed away.

“It’s a particularly friendly society and it means a great deal to me”, she muses sincerely. “It’s more of a family really, that’s why we are referred to as the Highams Family.”

A Foot In The Door runs at Wanstead House, The Green, Wanstead, from Thursday, November 12, until Saturday, November 14, 8pm. Saturday matinee, 3pm. Tickets: 020 8924 6987 or boxoffice@highamsplayers.co.uk (£7 adults/£4 children; matinees £5/£3)