Play on Words

A play in which a critic in the audience is picked on and humiliated? That doesn't sound much fun. But fun it proves in Three's Company rug-pulling production, a tale of theatre folk which restlessly puns on the language of theatre. Tom Crawshaw's play keeps you on your toes for most of its 70 minutes, as you piece together its fragmented history and keep pace with Pirandellian shifts between illusion and 'reality'. It's pulled off with considerable panache - enough to excuse a conclusion more conventional than the linguistic/conceptual pyrotechnics anticipate.

'Play on Words' starts with an actor, Eddie (or is it his real-life alter ego, Yaz Al-Shaater?), being given impossible directions through an audition speech. Then we meet Fred, with whom Eddie once ran a theatre company. Cooped up in a bland office, with mysterious noises next door, Eddie encourages Fred to play out scenes from his love affair with the absent Jen, a former actor in their company. The lines thus blur between 'play' and 'real life' - just as Crawshaw's script telegraphs its own artifice with twisty verbal gags and neat symmetries. What's more, the show's operator, Jonnie (Crawshaw himself), is also a character, who announces the next cues and takes part in scenes, sometimes simultaneously.

Finally, few of the promised insights into illusion, reality and the power of words are forthcoming. The explanation for Jen's absence is tangential to what's gone before, and - given how little, amid the Brechtian theatrics, we get to know the characters - the play's big-emoting finale is hard to take. But the failings are forgiveable in a play that's as light-footed as this and as adept at scrambling the act of theatre. Critics should beware - but for others, it's worth a look.