The dreams of youth collide with the wisdom of reality in Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love, which opens at Watford Palace Theatre next week.

Following a critically acclaimed tour in 2010, Paines Plough’s premiere production traces the lives of teenage sweethearts Kenneth and Sandra through the heady and hopeful days of the ‘60s through to the present day.

The production is directed by James Grieve (formerly of Palace Theatre Creative Associate of nabokov) and co-director of Paines Plough (Come To Where I’m From).

James says the brilliance of this production is its ability to ring true across the generations.

“The fascinating thing is how it manages to trace 40 years from 1967 when the main characters are 19-year-olds intoxicated by ‘60s ideologies, when young people had a sense of being in charge of their own destiny for first time. Their lives are the counterpoint to the post-war economic restrictions of their parents’ generation.

Act two opens on the 1990s with the Poll Tax riots at the height of the free market and Thatcherism.

Then it moves on to 2011, and the couple have grown up children of their own who face tuition fees, the impossible dream of owning property, cuts in public spending and financial strictures. It’s society gone a full circle.”

The cast features Lisa Jackson (As You Like It, Watford Palace Theatre) and Ben Addis (Never So Good, National Theatre and The Seagull, RSC) as Sandra and Kenneth.

Lisa and Ben go from being 19 to 64 during the course of the play but James says he hasn’t gone for a huge makeover.

“We’re really just trusting the writing. The big appeal is you see real people taking on the huge challenge of aging and using their innate skills as actors to do that.

In the final act, you see the similarities in characters to their 19-year-old selves. They’re exactly the same people, older and wiser maybe, but still excited by the possibility of life and the freedom to make the choices that determine their own future.”

Watford Palace Theatre, March 16-19 at 7.45pm, Saturday matinee at 2.30pm. Free post-show Q&A, March 16. Details: 01923 225671