Things We Do for Love

Things We Do for Love is a play written by Alan Ayckbourn. This is a two-act play, with the settings in sections of three flats at 56 Bloom Street, London.

Gilbert, Hamish, Nikki and Barbara are in an early Victorian terrace house which is divided into three flats on different floors. To one side, the front door from the street leads to a small hallway with stairs up to the first floor flat and another flight down to the basement flat. There is a front door leading off this hallway to Barbara's ground-floor apartment.

In view in Barbara's flat is the main sitting room. Leading from the living room are three further doors: one to the bedroom, one to the bathroom, and one to a small, galley-style kitchen. Upstairs, we can see part of the corresponding flat above Barbara's. However, our view of this is cut off at about knee level. This is therefore the view we are afforded of any occupant. We can see a carpet, the legs of a bedstead, chairs and tables.

Downstairs in the basement, below Barbara, we can see even less of Gilbert's flat. A foot or so of the ceiling of his bedsitting room is all that is visible, together with the top of a step-ladder supporting a trestle.

Gilbert is in love with Barbara. He painted an enormous nude picture of Barbara on the ceiling of his flat. Nikki attended St Gertrude School together with Barbara. They had not seen each other for 10 years but Nikki said that Barbara is her best friend. Both of them sang their school anthem various times in the play. The song was about girls being strong and independent. Nikki and Hamish moved into Barbara's apartment and occupied the top floor while waiting for their new home to be furnished. Hamish is a vegetarian. Barbara openly criticizes Hamish's tie and tells Nikki and Hamish that she thinks men who are vegetarians are wimps. Still she fell in love with Hamish. There were two love scenes between Barbara and Hamish, one in Hamish and Nikki's flat, and the other at Barbara's flat. There was also a serious fight, ending with broken limbs and head injury, between Hamish and Barbara.

A very funny story. We never can tell what attracts people. The most unlikely ones can become lovers.