"Verbatim theatre" has an earnest ring to it, but Alecky Blythe here uses the technique to create a highly entertaining production. She applies to the 2003 Wimbledon fortnight the same process she used so successfully for the Hackney siege in Come Out Eli: that of editing everyday speech that is then relayed to the actors on headphones during the performance.
In this case, the result is not especially surprising. Class and celebrity, we discover, dominate Wimbledon. All England Club members past players such as Christine Truman seem to inhabit a different world from that of ticket touts, overnight queuers and casual punters. Even behind the scenes, distinctions rule: while the waitresses in the members' enclosure are all posh graduates, the chefs are solidly working-class. Blythe also highlights the celebrity-gawping that goes on at Wimbledon: "We got a wave off the old bugger," one woman cries, unduly gratified by the spectacle of Cliff Richard having his tea.
As social commentary, the 60-minute play is quirkily enjoyable. There is one particularly good moment when Alice Selwyn, impersonating the microphone-toting Blythe, pins down a corporate hospitality guest who slurs: "You must hate people like me." And Phil Marshall as a harassed tout spins a plausible-sounding story about the Duchess of Kent's indignation at a humble guest of hers being ordered from the royal box. Compared to Wimbledon, the Lord's Test seems a model of social democracy.
But while the Recorded Delivery company capture something of the "feel" of Wimbledon, the show tells us little about the actual tennis. Indeed, having wormed her way into the competitors' lounge, Blythe seems hopelessly tongue-tied when confronted by Roger Federer or a past doubles champ.
While I'm all for verbatim theatre, a play such as Howard Brenton's Epsom Downs, with naked actors impersonating the Derby Day horses, captured more vividly the texture of a great English sporting occasion. Blythe's interviews, shaped by Judith Johnson as dramaturg, wittily pinpoint the social divisions within Wimbledon, but leaving out the tennis is rather like giving us Glyndebourne without the opera.
· Until July 2. Box office: 0870 060 6646.
