ABSURDIST theatre is not something you expect local amateurs to tackle and do well. The Castle Players, from Barnard Castle, did more than well – they nailed it.

David Campton’s play is a complex celebration of flawed human psyche. It is likened by some to Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, probably because its set in similar surroundings and there’s a bird in the title.

Campton’s 1975 play is less brutal, but every bit as convoluted as it explores the obsession of six deranged women kept in a cage by the Mistress, in a calm understated performance by Carolyn Naseby.

The cage is a visual metaphor for the trap each woman has made for herself.

What they have is what we call obsessive compulsive disorder, or perhaps Stockholm Syndrome, which today can be treated. In 1975, they were locked up and labelled insane.

The women do not interact, hurrying into an institutionalised line immediately their mistress arrives with drugs and a macaroon for The Great Guzzler, a delightfully schmaltzy Laura Shaw.

There was a brilliant portrayal of the hypochondriac Medicated Gloom from Nicola Worsnop; Susannah Handley gave fine "she-said-he-said" observation as scandalmonger Long-Tongued Gossip; Ella Blackburn was first-rate as the preening Mirror-Eyed Gazer, a woman fixated with her image.

Phoebe Shaw warbled away as Constant Twitting, and Trudi Dixon’s Regular Thump had a brilliant stare, intimidating enough to scare the audience.

Routine shattered when The Wild One, a superb performance from Susie Kitson, was put into the cage. She wants to get the "flock out of there", craving freedom - don’t we all?

Eagle-eyed director Mary Stastny handled the staging with great care, finding humour and empathy to devise a confident, enjoyable and impressive production.

Helen Brown