The Milsons have lost a daughter and the Williamses have lost a son. Scott Williams, a sociopath from the wrong side of the tracks obsessed with sadistic sexual fantasies, is serving a life sentence for raping and murdering beautiful, middle-class Donna Milson. Is it possible that the two families could have anything to say to each other? Can they begin to understand each other's pain and rage? If they were brought together, could they have a conversation?
David Williamson's mesmerising play was inspired by a form of conflict management, pioneered in Australia and called community conferences, which brings together the victims of crime and the perpetrators and their families. In some ways, the conference format is limiting: it means the play is formulaic, with the bereaved father cushioned by his middle-class cocoon so that he fails to listen to Scott's sister's protestations that there were socio-economic factors which led to the crime. There is even a prickly psychiatrist consumed by guilt because she recommended Scott's release on parole when she was treating him for a previous offence.
The whole thing may sound like a good advertisement for social work and a bad one for theatre, but that's not the case. Pretty soon, you find yourself hooked. Soon after, you find yourself taking sides and then switching. Most of all, you find yourself with tears running down your face as one mother tells stories of her laughing, exasperating daughter while another mother sits and listens, her face a mask of grief.
It is a harrowing hundred minutes, and every single one is perfectly pitched in Jacob Murray's beautifully acted production. Maybe not a great play, but a moving and intriguing experience.
· Until October 9. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
