FORMER I’m A Celebrity star and Hollywood actress Stefanie Powers arrives in Cardiff this week for a five-night run at the New Theatre Cardiff. Fresh from her appearance in the Australian jungle, she joins the Malvern-based Middle Ground Theatre Company for this new production of Ernest Thompson’s classic.

Hart to Hart actress Stefanie is joined on stage by English actor Richard Johnson, who is a founder member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The pair star as Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 48th year.

They are joined by their daughter Chelsea played by Goodnight Sweetheart and Casualty actress Elizabeth Carling and her fiancée played by Tom Roberts, who leave their teenage son, Billy, with Norman and Ethel while they travel to Europe.

The play is deeply moving and touching and explores the relationship between the elderly couple, their daughter and their new grandson.

Richard Johnson is superb as the hapless Norman and as his character unfolds, the audience come to understand his ways and feel genuine affection for him.

Elizabeth Carling as his errant daughter, Chelsea, is suitably defiant and Graeme Dalling, as the fourteen year old Billy, provides plenty of laughter as he and Norman converse in teenage patter.

Miss Powers gives an understated performance as Ethel, with an exceptionally strong characterisation of the role without dominating the whole piece, and the natural coupling between Powers and Johnson provides a perfect snapshot of real life. The chemistry between the two actors is evident which is vital for this kind of play to work.

With excellent direction by Michael Lumney, On Golden Pond will undoubtedly set your mind thinking about the passage of time and living for today. The script is a real delight, relying entirely on the wit of the words and the ability of the cast to tell what amounts to a very simple story.

But Norman is the mainspring of the piece and Richard Johnson has got him completely nailed, a curmudgeon and stirrer of the first order who knowingly misunderstands and misleads. And he’s got some cracking lines in a script that bubbles and sometimes crackles with good humour.

The classic film of On Golden Pond, which starred Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda, went on to win three Academy Awards including Best Actor and Best Actress for Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn.

If you want to see acting at it’s very best then I urge you to go along to the New Theatre, Cardiff this week. The play runs until Saturday 18th February.