For a troubling moment it seems David Greig's play might be upstaged by the delicious crispy crust of a vegetable pie. Being Norwegian is the first instalment of A Play, a Pie, a Pint, a lunchtime-theatre stalwart in Glasgow that has travelled to London, switching to the commuter-catching time of 6pm. The season continues with plays by Ché Walker, Sean Buckley and Rona Munro, all of whom will have to work hard to match not only the complimentary hot pie that comes with each ticket, but Greig's beguiling vignette.
It does not begin promisingly: having met in a pub in an unnamed Scottish city, Lisa and Sean have returned to Sean's flat and their fumbling conversational foreplay lacks spark. But slowly, something magical happens. Lisa was born in Trondheim and talks constantly, helplessly even, about her homeland. She describes how people situate their sofas opposite a window so they can trace the sky's changes, how they don't watch much television but "talk very gently to each other", how in winter they hibernate. "Being Norwegian," she assures Sean as he dims the lights, "we know how to live with the dark."
In a wide-eyed, note-perfect performance by Meg Fraser, Lisa's poetic intensity and disjointed humour are unsettling, hilarious and captivating by turns. No wonder Sean, a floundering loner, is so discombobulated by her. By the time Lisa roars at him that no man in Scotland is "a match for a real Norwegian woman", you want to hug the both of them.
Softly directed by Roxana Silbert, Greig's play proves as warming as the pie. Barely 45 minutes long, it speaks tenderly of loneliness, nostalgia, the desperate longing to connect and that misfit feeling that no one quite knows where you are coming from. All that, before most plays have even started.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7922 2922.
