Any production of the work of Belfast's Owen McCafferty in his home town is newsworthy, but this adaptation, first performed at London's Donmar in 2005, is not his finest hour. McCafferty has transposed JP Miller's 1958 teleplay (which later became the Oscar-nominated 1962 film) to 1960s London, and charts the slide into alcoholism of a Northern Irish emigrant couple who meet in Belfast airport in the play's first scene.
McCafferty has said that he sees this more as a love story than a tale of addiction. Indeed, some of the strongest aspects of his writing are the early scenes of Donal and Mona's youthful attraction and shared idealism. Because the individual psychological portraits and the increasing complexity of the relationship do not fully convince, however, the whole thing comes to feel like a dramatised seminar on the perils of drink. McCafferty has also lumbered Donal's character with a obsession with the Irish racehorse Arkle, which serves as a metaphor for the couple's sparkling rise and tragic fall.
McCafferty compresses the deterioriation of the couple's relationship into a few short scenes, and the actors are unable to trace the emotional arc required. Even in Fergal McElherron's fine performance, it is difficult to make the connection between Donal the hard-working optimist and someone who would hit his wife when he suspects she is hiding a bottle of whisky.
Gemma Mae Halligan is an attractive presence but too young and inexperienced to make sense of Mona's seeming contradictions. Roy Heaybeard's brisk direction means that the audience's attention seldom flags, but I left feeling preached to, not moved.
· Until May 26. Box office: 0289-038 108
