Five years ago at Edinburgh, Simon Bennett, who began writing while serving a sentence for burglary at Winchester prison, produced a very promising first play that drew on his experience of breaking and entering to delve into a twilight world of low life, thievery and double-dealing. Cleverly directed by Max Stafford-Clark, Drummers transferred to the New Ambassadors in London, where everyone agreed that it would be a crime to miss it.
Five years passed without a follow-up, and now that it has arrived you wonder whether Bennett had only the one play in him.
Burn is produced by the Synergy Theatre Project, which uses drama to advance the resettlement and rehabilitation of offenders and ex-offenders. Like Drummers, the new play is a revenge drama. It has some of the spark of its predecessor, but is less well constructed and covers much of the same territory, without the same sharp focus.
Fen, Staide and Teale are all crack addicts. Camaraderie only extends as far as a shared pipe and the next deal, and when a deal has violent repercussions, the manipulative Fen has no hesitation in saving his own skin by playing Staide and Teale off against each other.
Some of the writing has real sardonic edge. "Tell her I'm dead. She needs cheering up," says Fen about his sad girlfriend Sissy, who recently had a miscarriage. Fen, played by Bennett himself, is the most fully realised character, but the others are so underdeveloped that they seem to be there only to serve as a foil for Fen's twisted idea of fun.
An awkward production played on an awkward design does the play no favours at all. All in all, it is reminder that even with a natural talent, playwrights do not necessarily spring fully formed. They may need more guidance than Bennett was offered here.
· Until July 31. Box office: 020-7620 3494.
