BECOMING a woman is not just about learning to walk in high heels and varnishing your nails.

It is also about being leered at by taxi drivers, propositioned by your boss and groped by your former wife.

So discovers suburban accountant Vernon when he arrives home from a trip to Casablanca feeling like a new woman. With sex changes, friends and lovers leaping out of the closet at a rate of knots and amorous best friends, Mixed Feelings was far from Malvern Theatres' usual fare.

But it proved to be a huge hit. Rising Damp writer Eric Chappell showed his capacity to make a crowd groan with laughter and shriek in surprise as the plot developed.

Paul Nicholas was excellent as the softly spoken Vernon/Verna and was complemented by Mary Tamm as his deadpan, no-nonsense wife Jan, who finds herself in the surreal position of advising her husband on the appropriate length for a skirt.

A strong supporting cast ensured a never-ending supply of melodramatic camp that would put Graham Norton to shame. John Benfield was particularly notable as golf-playing man's man Eddie, who finds Vernon's new look unexpectedly attractive.

Some of the gags were as obvious as Vernon's blonde wig and the play made no attempt to say anything new about the minorities it poked fun at, but as an outrageous, soap-opera of a comedy, it was a success.

Mixed Feelings plays in the Festival Theatre until tomorrow night (Saturday). NIONE MEAKIN