This low-budget oddity, which is performed entirely in rhyming couplets, starts with a drenched, stark naked salesman, Victor (Iain Robertson), and a ripe Simon Callow voiceover explaining why this poor unfortunate has ended up in this predicament.

Punters in Savills were cursing George Osborne yesterday. The estate agent, which focuses on the high end section of the market, was one of the stocks worst-hit by the Budget after the Chancellor announced he was upping the amount of tax on homes being sold for more than £2m.

Families in London's prosperous boroughs have been postponing moves to bigger pads in the Home Counties while house prices in the capital surge but the trend could be ending, estate agent Savills said yesterday.

Duncan Roy has just spent three months in a tough Los Angeles jail. But the really tough thing, he tells Guy Adams, was having no idea why he was there

Chippenham Park, near Ely, in Cambridgeshire, was closed to all but one hardy busload of snowdrop enthusiasts from Lowestoft yesterday morning. With 4in of snow on the ground they looked in vain for the flowers, which normally bloom on the first weekend in February.

House prices are down, supplies of new homes are below target and frustrated first-time buyers are struggling to get mortgages...

As long as you're in for the long haul, an unmodernised home is the cheapest way on to the property ladder.

Firms charged with the upkeep of blocks of flats – known as managing agents – could be putting occupants at risk, according to a leading property management company.

Rentokil initial said its first-quarter profits had fallen by 10 per cent and its City Link parcels business was continuing to frustrate its attempts to revive its fortunes.

A new iPhone app has been launched aimed at helping buy-to-let landlords find out if their prospective tenants are on a blacklist for property damage or unpaid rent.

Leaseholders are being systematically overcharged for buildings insurance by managing agents, property industry experts have warned.

Outlook One of the micro-measures the Chancellor should explore next week is a review of the aged laws that govern the relationship between the owners of commercial properties and tenants such as retailers. As Stephen Marks, the boss of French Connection noted yesterday, these laws are now creaking badly – so much so that they are a serious impediment to a recovery on the high street.

Debt-laden property management company Peverel has gone into administration in a further blow to the empire of the billionaire Tchenguiz brothers.