Claire Dowie wants her audience in St Albans to laugh while they watch the new production of her acclaimed 1987 play Adult Child/Dead Child. It just so happens that the subject matter actually isn’t all that funny.

Directed by Claire’s long-standing colleague Colin Watkeys, Adult Child/Dead Child tells the harrowing tale of a child grappling with a difficult childhood and eventual decline into mental illness.

“You meet people who have had hard lives and they’re not really serious, they’re not miserable, they’re the funniest people I’ve met,“ explains ‘80s stand-up comic Claire, who wrote the Time Out award-winning play after becoming “frustrated with just doing the punch line comedy“.

Colin, who first encouraged Claire to pen the production, adds: “Although it is a serious subject the character does want us to laugh. The character doesn’t want us to take their story too seriously otherwise they’ll feel worse.“

During her early career as a comedian and writer, Claire, 58, garnered a reputation for confronting taboo topics such as gender and sexuality, which she explored through her 1991 play Why is John Lennon Wearing a Skirt?

However, she was moved to write about mental illness following a chance conversation with a psychiatric nurse on a train.

“She just sort of snapped my elastic because she said most people in mental hospitals weren’t mad they were just lonely,“ remembers Claire. “That piqued my interest really.“

At the time, this sense of loneliness struck a chord with her as a young woman exploring her position in society and feeling “sort of marginalised as a young lesbian-type-person“.

“This is in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s when it was all very closeted,“ explains the south London resident who grew up in Birmingham. “I didn’t have any mental health trouble, just that being isolated is quite universal.“

The universality of the solitary character in Adult Child/ Dead Child is explored in this revived production by Solo Theatre which sees six actors, including Claire, interpret the single part.

Colin, 59, explains: “It seems like a completely new play because the cast is very varied from male to female, young to old, all origins. It is a diverse cast. The character works for all of them.

“It gives us more of a sense of the fact that it’s about everybody’s experience of growing up, being young and the issues that remain with us into adulthood – hence the title,“ continues the director, who has worked with Claire for 35 years.

Although he admits the production began as an experiment, and at first Claire wasn’t interested in bringing the drama back to the stage.

“It was just because I didn’t want to do it on my own because I’m a fair age now, I get tired, I want some company,“ jokes Claire, who is currently writing a play for Stage2 youth theatre company in Birmingham.

When I ask what the pair are planning to do next, she quips: “I’m planning to retire,“ while Colin – more seriously – explains they are excited about their upcoming show at The Maltings Theatre on Saturday night.

“It’s a brilliant theatre, with brilliant people,“ he says. “We’re really looking forward to Saturday and hope that we meet a new audience there.“

Maltings Art Theatre, Level 2, The Maltings, St Albans, Saturday, April 25, 8pm. Details: 0333 666 3366, maltingsarttheatre.co.uk