What a privilege to be in a theatre watching two wonderful actors and a playwright trusting us to confront - through humour and pathos - how humans damage themselves as they perilously search for happiness and freedom in desperate times.

Black comedy Chin Chin, by Francois Billetdoux, is set in Paris in 1950s.

It stars The Good Life’s Felicity Kendal as Pamela Pusey-Picq, and legendary star of silver screen, small screen and stage, Simon Callow, as Italian alcoholic Cerareo Grimaldi.

The pair have a palpable rapport on stage playing two people whose spouses are having an affair.

The audience became engaged in their conversations – and there are a lot of words.

Callow’s Italian accent does not falter and makes the character even more convincing. He is a joy to behold.

The humour is dark, and sometimes very disturbing as we laugh too, about alcoholism, abandoning families, stealing, and humankind’s selfishness in their panic to find ‘freedom’, a word that echoes through the play.

This thought-provoking play is framed in a wonderful set which adapts effortlessly from scene to scene – from inside a Parisian apartment to the back streets of the city.

The publicity for the production calls the play bitter-sweet, and it is; but it is more.

It is a poignant reminder of how things don’t go to plan in our lives, and is made more unbearable for we find ourselves laughing at the sometimes sad human condition we share.

Joshua Dickinson plays Bobby, Pamela’s son, with sincere simplicity as a baffled-yet-wise youth.

And the two leading players, who hardly ever leave the stage, show the actors’ art as they engage the audience in their portrayal of desperate, sometimes cruel, attempts to find love amidst heart-breaking vulnerability.

Don’t hesitate to go and savour this unusual and disturbingly funny play.

Chin Chin is on until Saturday October 26 at the Theatre Royal Windsor, Thames Street, Windsor.

Showtimes are Mon-Sat 8pm, Thu 2.30pm, Sat 4.45pm.

Tickets cost £13-£33.50 and can be purchased by calling 01753 853888 or visiting www.theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk .