WHEN members of Dorchester Amateur Dramatics Society take to the stage to perform Raymond Hopkins’ farce Love Begins at Fifty they will have more than usual reason to put on a great show.

That’s because the play’s creator, Oxfordshire playwright Raymond Hopkins, will be in the audience to see them do it — and the show raises money to help people with multiple sclerosis including his own daughter.

Love Begins at Fifty tells the story of Clive and Anita Debanks who have been married for 28 years but led an uneventful life.

Despite it being a loveless marriage, Clive, played by Mark Williams, has never been unfaithful.

But as he prepares to celebrate his 50th birthday, downtrodden Clive feels that life is passing him by and has a yearning for one last fling.

For author Hopkins, Love Begins at Fifty holds a special place in his heart as it was the first play he wrote as a fundraising tool for charity after daughter Katy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 21 years ago at the age of just 19.

Since that first play in 1998, Hopkins, who lives in Long Hanborough, has written eight more, with all his royalties going to the charity Multiple Sclerosis Society to aid research.

Hopkins, 71, said of his daughter’s diagnosis: “The news hit our family hard and it took a long time to come to terms with this devastating event which had engulfed our lives.”

Deciding he wanted to do something to raise money for MS research, but not wishing to do a sponsored skydive or round-the-coast-of-Britain walk, Hopkins determined to write a farcical comedy and donate its royalties to the charity.

Love Begins at Fifty is being performed by DADS at Dorchester village hall from Thursday to Saturday, November 13 to 15, with the role of Clive’s wife Anita taken by Rosemary Mills. Intent on his fling, Clive picks three women from the lonely hearts column of his local newspaper. The same paper is also running a competition to find the perfect married couple, with the first prize of a Caribbean cruise. Anita enters the contest but keeps it a secret from her husband — and a newspaper photographer calls the night she is away but Clive is entertaining one of his dates. Naturally, things get complicated.

Anita’s best friend Claire is played by Anne Winslet and other members of the cast include Sue Kitson, Rachel Winslet-Morris, Christine Jones, Lucie Hall, Geoff Russell and Mark Johnson.

Hopkins said he tried to attend as many productions of his plays as he could as a thank-you to the groups staging them and also because it was ‘a very good learning curve’ watching the audience’s reaction to his work.

Love Begins at Fifty and the other plays have proved very successful at theatres throughout Britain, the rest of Europe and Australia, with hundreds of productions and summer season runs. To date, they have raised more than £31,000 for multiple sclerosis research.

Hopkins said: “I will continue to support the MS Society with my fundraising efforts, bringing the day ever closer when I can hear those wonderful words ‘A cure for MS has been found’.”

Despite MS, his daughter Katy is keeping well, is married and has blessed him and his wife with two grandchildren.

Tickets for the show are £6 for Thursday and £8 for Friday and Saturday and are available from Hair & Body Workshop, Lilly’s and Co-op, all in Dorchester, Aisha Stores and Post Office, Warborough, and the Post Office, Clifton Hampden, by email to tickets@dads.org.uk, by calling 01865 340792 or online at www.dads.org.uk (a booking fee will apply).