SOME plays can sell tickets from familiarity or reputation, or the name of the author draws a crowd. Sometimes it’s the actors or director people come to see.

The next production at Ilkley Playhouse is called Visitors. It’s a relatively new play, first performed in 2014, from the pen of a young playwright, Barney Norris. Who better to turn to than one of the actors currently in rehearsal to tell us why we should come and see it?

Livy Potter plays Kate, who is employed by the son of an ageing couple, Edie and Arthur, to look after Edie, who is starting to forget things. Arthur, her husband of many years, continues to run their struggling Dales farm. Kate starts off as an outsider to this couple on their isolated farm in the Yorkshire Dales.

Livy fell in love with the honest writing, both funny and heart-breaking, with insight and empathy into the story of a long, happy marriage. She was drawn to the character of Kate, a complex young woman, who is very caring yet struggles with problems of her own.

Livy also leapt at the chance to work with the rest of the cast, three talented, experienced actors whose names and faces will be familiar to local theatre-goers: Jan Thomas, Mark Simister and Stephen Brown.

Working with experienced colleagues lends a feeling of security and Livy is getting a lot from the process. Visitors is directed by the Playhouse’s artistic director, Jamesine Cundell Walker, who blends insight into the heart of the story with an organic, collaborative rehearsal process. The off-stage closeness adds to the on-stage dynamic.

Livy, as with others familiar with Visitors, was astonished to find that Norris was only in his 20s when he wrote the play. It contains real insight into a mature relationship and the heart of a family. Arthur and Edie’s long and happy marriage is written about with skill and empathy, as well as remarkable observation. As Visitors is very naturally written, it feels like you are sitting in the farm house with them, share love, life and laughter with Arthur and Edie.

Norris admits he was inspired by his grandparents, whose seven-decade marriage helped teach him something valuable about what is important in life. It’s not an immediately obvious inspiration, but Visitors was written partly in reaction to the 2008 financial crisis. Norris explained in a 2014 article in the Independent that he hoped a story of constancy and love “might show us a way out of our highly flammable fixation with [economic] growth… I believe love is central to our lives – that all the births, marriages, deaths and friendships that happen to us form the core of our experience of life while we’re visiting.”

He adds a resonant observation. “Theatres are empathy engines: nothing is as effective as a good play at generating sympathetic understanding of other lives.” And often through understanding the lives of others we can enrich our own.

This beautiful piece of theatre can be seen from Tuesday, February 6 to Saturday, February 10. Visitors is a funny, touching and beautifully written with topics that resonate with everyone - love, family and friendship in old age. It is a play written, acted and directed with love.

Tickets can be bought on line at ilkleyplayhouse.co.uk or by calling 01943 609539.