JEAN ANOUILH AT THE NEW END: TWO-FOR-ONE OFFER

The French playwright Jean Anouilh divided his early work into "pink" and "black" depending on whether the plays had happy endings. Leocadia, a light and fluffy study of fantasy set in a fairy-tale world, is certainly one of the pieces roses. The play laughs at the fanciful delusions of a prince determined to live only inside the memory of a distant three-day love-affair (right). Leocadia, his beloved, was an opera singer who subsisted (not for long) on a diet of champagne, orchids and passion. The difficulty of distinguishing between reality and illusion was a recurring theme in Anouilh's plays, as was the loss of innocence in a decadent society. His work, which included Antigone and Beckett, was almost as popular in Britain and America, in translation, as it was in France.

A production of Leocadia by the new young theatre company Generation X opens at the New End Theatre, Hampstead, on 10 January. The play has been performed in London before - as Time Remembered in 1956 - but this production uses a modern translation by the renowned Timberlake Wertenbaker, author of the acclaimed plays Our Country's Good and Three Birds Alighting on a Field. Her version of Leocadia was originally commissioned for BBC Radio and was performed by the RSC Fringe at Edinburgh in 1990. The production is directed by a 25-year-old, Jonathan Cognac; and produced by a 27-year-old, Sophia Ashen. Suitably, the show is sponsored by Veuve Clicquot - the characters have to consume large quantities of the stuff and prop champagne never made a convincingpop. Generation X are offering two tickets for the price of one to the first 20 Independent on Sunday readers to ring the box office after 2pm tomorrow (Monday) with the correct answer to this question: ce L'Invitation au Chateau (1950) was the play that made Jean Anouilh's name on this side of the Channel. But what was it called in English?

ce 8 Leocadia, New End Theatre, 27 New End, NW3 (071-794 0022), Tues-Sat 8pm, Sun 5pm, to 5 Feb. Tickets: £5 Tues, £10 Wed-Sun, (£5 concs, not Sat).