WEST End star Sarah Moyle returns to the Stephen Joseph Theatre, in Scarborough, for seasonal mayhem in the upcoming Christmas production, The Schoolmistress.

The festivities at Volumnia College are guaranteed to set the place alight in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero’s court farce, which follows a tryst between Victorian schoolgirls, gentlemen and a secretive prima donna with hilarious consequences.

Miss Caroline Dyott’s world is falling apart. When you are the principal of a ladies’ college, just secretly married to The Honourable Vere Queckett; when its Christmas time, you cannot pay the household bills and your husband’s debts are mounting; when you have a runaway teenage bride under your roof and her monstrous father, Admiral Rankling, is firing salvos like a loose cannon – there is only one course of action – go on the stage and become an opera diva.

As the Schoolmistress, Sarah Moyle will mark her 10th appearance with the Stephen Joseph Theatre company.

She has performed in several Ayckbourn shows, including Drowning On Dry Land and A Chorus Of Disapproval and was in the original production of Jerusalem at the Royal Court in 2009, reprising her role as Linda Fawcett twice at the Apollo Theatre and on Broadway.

TV appearances include Ricky Gervais’ Extras.

Performing opposite as The Honourable Vere Queckett is Richard Teverson, seen in the West End in The 39 Steps and When Harry Met Sally.

They are joined by Peter Macqueen, a regular at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake, and Catherine Kinsella, seen at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Northern Broadsides’ Rutherford And Son and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

The cast from the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s family production, Beauty and The Beast – A Space Adventure!

(Rebecca Tanwen, Gilly Tompkins, Lucas Smith, Henry Devas and Christopher Sawalha) which runs with The Schoolmistress until December 28, are also appearing.

Dan Henley makes his first professional Stephen Joseph Theatre appearance having returned to drama with the help of the theatre’s OutReach department and an approach from Chris Monks, the theatre’s artistic director.

Members of the Stephen Joseph’s youth theatre are also being given a chance to shine in the production.

Chris Monks said: “The Schoolmistress is my favourite Christmas comedy, a Victorian battle of the sexes that is still bang up to date. Farce is the basis of modern television comedy: Fawlty Towers, Harry Hill, Miranda Hart and Some Girls all rely on things getting completely out of control.

“The Schoolmistress takes us to a scruffy boarding school where a useless toff has been left in charge of four schoolgirls over the Christmas holidays. He thinks he’s in charge but the girls have other ideas. Sparks fly and everybody gets their fingers burned.”

The Schoolmistress is at the Stephen Joseph Theatre until January 4. Tickets, priced from £10 to £24.50, or £50 for two adults and two children, are available from the box office on 01723 370541 or online at www.sjt.uk.com/howtobook.asp