With Shoot the Crow playing in the main auditorium, the old Whitehall Theatre completes its transformation into a 21st-century theatre meeting the needs of contemporary plays with the opening of Trafalgar Studio 2, a flexible 92-seat auditorium. The aim is to provide a gateway for productions into the West End, with Studio 2 hits possibly graduating into the main house or other West End theatres.
It's a great idea that recognises that most of London's 19th century playhouses provide a less than ideal experience for modern theatre-goers wanting to see contemporary drama. But if the idea is to bear fruit it is going to have to programme much better plays than this thriller in which the arrival at the secluded home of the former protégé of retired intelligence officer, Brian Traquair, has far-reaching consequences for both him and his family.
Walk into the theatre, and you see the kind of set that wouldn't disgrace an Agatha Christie country house mystery. For all its talk of Iraq, the war on terror and shady goings-on by intelligence operatives, Peter Arnott's three-hander is an old-fashioned psychological thriller in which the characters drink too much, talk too much and let the skeletons in their cupboards come tumbling out in a way that only ever happens in plays of a certain genre.
The trouble is that Arnott's serious points about the way intelligence make the world a less safe place, and the conundrum of how we can possibly believe a word of anything told us by spies who make their living by lying, is lost in the exploration of the cliche that all spooks are damaged, diseased people incapable of love or being loved. With his hooded eyes making him look like a bird of prey about to pounce, Sandy Neilson has his moments, but the others hector rather than act. Leave this one to the conspiracy theorists.
· Until December 17. Box office: 0870 060 6632.
