It is about an actress called Rosie Seymour who accepts a date with a mysterious Sam Berryman, who seems to have mistaken her for a Joanna Rupelford.

FlatSpin, along with GamePlan, was originally intended to be part of a pair of plays, both set in the London Docklands, and both using the same cast of seven.

[1] The pair of plays was eventually joined by a third, RolePlay, written as an afterthought, and the trilogy, Damsels in Distress, was shown in the Stephen Joseph Theatre's 2001 season.

In the conversation, it is disclosed that Rosie is an actress with little success behind her (her only role so far being a rabbit in a miserable touring children's production), and no boyfriend, and that she is openly desperate for both.

Her one hope is that she is down to the last two for a big role as Jane Eyre, but just after Annette leaves, Rosie receives a call from her agent tell her the part went to the other girl.

She is in the company of Tommy Angel, an ex-SAS bodyguard who makes wildly optimistic passes at Rosie, such as suggesting that many people find this sort of danger arousing.

Rosie plays the part of Joanna well, and hands over the case of money from a hidden compartment in a table as soon as she sees the drugs.

He, Tracy and Tommy leave, and then Sam retrieves the real briefcase full of money from the extra secret compartment in the table that Maurice didn't know about.

[5] The first West End performance was made at the Duchess Theatre, opening on 7 September 2001, and featured the same cast and production team.

[4] However, the success of RolePlay over the other two productions led to FlatSpin being sidelined, along with GamePlan, until eventually it was shown only once a week, to the disappointment of both Ayckbourn and the cast.

There are two further professional productions recorded at the Arts Archive since the original Stephen Joseph Theatre run, slightly behind GamePlan and RolePlay.

This did not stop Jeremy Kingston of The Times giving a broadly positive review of the play, in spite of some reservations about some logical flaws, in particular singling out commendation for Alison Pargeter for her performance as Rosie.

[7] Charles Hutchinson of the Yorkshire Evening Press also gave praise for her performance, noting that until now her career had consisted mostly of child and teenage roles (GamePlan included), and writing "... it is like that moment when the librarian takes off her glasses".