Yesterday my brother and I joined my father at the coast.

He was on exceptionally good form, at one stage telling us a story about taking some prospective business clients to a burlesque-type theatre show based upon Jane, the fictional lead character in the famous Daily Mirror cartoon strip.

During the Second World War, the cartoon Jane had done wonders to maintain troop morale by getting into all sorts of scrapes which – at some point – involved her ‘innocently’ losing her clothes and spending most of her time in her underwear. In fact, in one notorious 1943 adventure, she was even discovered totally naked by a group of British Tommies – an incident which later was credited with causing the British Army in North Africa to advance five miles in a single day.

In Britain in the 1950s the law on nakedness in public theatrical performances was very strict. Nudity was allowed only if the performer did not move and there were considerable penalties (including a theoretical maximum of a prison sentence) for anyone who transgressed.

This Jane theatre show attended by my father featured spots for singers, comedians and other artistes, all interspersed with little scenes in which a tableau of scantily-clad dancers would feature with ‘Jane’, totally nude and totally motionless, at the very top. Every time she appeared thus in austerity-ridden, post-War British theatres, there was an initial huge cheers from the audience and then a buzz of excitement.

It just so happened that at the time my father was playing for a top Sussex rugby club, alongside the husband of the actress who was playing the part of ‘Jane’. Just to see what would happen, at one crucial point – with ‘Jane’, butt-naked in a classical pose, a study in concentration – my father called out loudly “How’s Arthur?”

The poor lady was completely ‘thrown’ by the remark and lost her composure for several moments, to the considerable delight of the packed audience.

Last night my father had two tickets to a performance of Terence Rattigan’s 1954 play Separate Tables at the Chichester Festival Theatre. As three into two wouldn’t go, it was decided I should accompany him whilst my brother would stay at the house and watch the two games of European club soccer being televised.

This classy Chichester production featured Iain Glenn and Gina McKee, together with a group of other ‘name’ character actors including Stephanie Cole (of the television comedy series Waiting For God), Stephanie Tewson (of Keeping Up Appearances) and John Nettleton (for me, always one of Sir Humphrey’s civil service mandarin colleagues in Yes, Minister).

As I had no previous knowledge of the play – and thereby effectively no choice in the matter - I decided to make a virtue of the fact by taking it exclusively as I found it.

At the outset I was disappointed, fearing that the setting – a genteel seaside hotel in Bournemouth, filled with scenes of upper-middle class interaction – would rapidly prompt in me a desperate struggle to stay awake. But gradually the quality of the acting and plot drew me in and I became hooked.

The piece is in fact two separate plays - the second, featuring many of the same characters, being set eighteen months after the first.

Unaware of this aspect, as the first half reached what seemed its natural conclusion … with the protagonist couple now sitting together at a dining table for two, and reaching out to hold hands as the lights went down … my father and I [a case of great minds thinking alike?], taking into account that over ninety minutes had passed, each individually jumped to the conclusion that the director had decided to dispense with an interval – and that the evening was over. Accordingly we gathered our coats and sprinted resolutely for the exit, hoping to beat the crush on the way to the car park, only to discover that our fellow audience members were instead flowing towards the bars to collect their ‘half-time’ drinks!

Back at the house afterwards, I googled the play on the internet and by this route discovered that a Hollywood movie version of Separate Tables had been made in 1958, with a star cast including Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Wendy Hillier, David Niven, Gladys Cooper and Catherine Nesbitt. It was nominated for seven Oscars and David Niven won ‘Best Actor’ for his portrayal of Major Pollock, the boastful but fraudulent hotel guest.

Ah well, I suppose it’s another case of ‘You live and learn’ …