Everybody knows that weddings can be ruinously expensive - and there are numerous ways and means of financing the big day. Here, however, is how not to do it.
Having plighted his troth, Sam has become unwisely entangled with a loan shark, and urgently needs to rob some houses to pay for the finger buffet. In a warm-hearted fraternal display, his brother Mazza agrees to help him do the job - think of it as a kind of advance wedding present - which is all the more touching given that he's only just been released from prison.
Unfortunately, the first flat they choose needs fumigating rather than ransacking: there are rats, mould and a foetid atmosphere, which plays havoc with Sam's asthma. And the owner of the flat - a smelly old derelict - has an uncanny ability to manipulate the brothers against one another.
This debut play by Karen Laws, winner of the BBC Northern Exposure comedy writing competition, uses a genial caper as cover for a much darker story about suppressed violence and broken trust. And though Laws tends to hedge around these themes rather than urge them forward, she rattles off bleakly comic dialogue with the wit and rhythm of a writer worth watching.
Jeremy Herrin's production gets a bit stuck in the middle, as the brothers try to work out what to do next, but it builds to a brilliantly staged and surprisingly horrific climax.
Joe Caffrey and Rob Atkinson powerfully convey the tensions and solidarity of siblings for whom blood runs thicker than water, though both are clearly as thick as each other. And Colin MacLachlan's Pinteresque hobo is so affectingly dishevelled that you'd almost swear he had unfinished business in Sidcup.
· Until April 8. Box office: 0191-232 1232.
