The Autumn Road Retirement Village in Caulfield has a fiercely competitive bridge club, although with time and tide doing its inevitable work, no bridge partnership lasts for long. When Minnie Cohen loses her partner in an unfortunate swimming accident, the best player in the village, Liraz Weinberg, wants them to team up. They’d be unbeatable all right, but Minnie abhors Liraz and wants something in return. She has a granddaughter and Liraz has a grandson, and both are hopelessly single. Laying all her cards on the table, Minnie is bidding hearts.

After her success with Neighbourhood Watch, playwright Lally Katz returns to MTC with a characteristically oddball story of kindly Jewish grandparents and raw ambition.

As riotously funny and brilliantly original as you would expect a brainchild of Lally Katz to be, Minnie & Liraz has a misfit charm that will leave you grinning. Award-winning director Anne-Louise Sarks (Medea) returns to conduct a great cast in which veterans Nancye Hayes AM (Funny Girl) and Sue Jones (Other Desert Cities) mix with comedy darlings Virginia Gay (Seven’s Winners and Losers) and John Leary (Private Lives).