Railton and Melanie meet at the fun fair in a small northern town recently beset by race riots. They hit it off immediately. There is an attraction between them, but also differences: Melanie is a middle-class girl who has been travelling to Tibet but doesn't know where she belongs; Railton is the working-class son of a local fair worker who is firmly rooted in the local community and a member of the BNP. Soon Melanie and Railton are in opposition as she tries to organise a multicultural "fair for the future" and he tries to celebrate the town's Anglo-Saxon past with a St George's Fair.
Joy Wilkinson's punchy but modest play has been travelling the regions, but well deserves its showcase in the West End. In other hands this tale of left and right, and right and wrong, might have been black and white, but it isn't, because Wilkinson is clever enough to make her points entirely through character rather than through diatribe.
First, she ensures that we get to know Railton and Melanie (excellently played by Anthony Shuster and Rebecca Everett) and see the spark of attraction between them as Helen Eastman's production evokes all the upside-down fun of the fair with just a little lighting and music. It is only gradually that Railton's thug-in-a-suit racist views begin to emerge, and by then - like Melanie - you have begun to like him.
What's more, Wilkinson cleverly complicates the mix by showing that Melanie and Railton have quite a lot in common: Melanie is being pushed by her father, the principal of the local college, to organise a fair for the future, while Railton is locked in his own struggle with his father, albeit one from beyond the grave.
This is as much about growing up, finding yourself and being your own person as it is about rightwing nationalism and multiculturalism, and it's a breath of fresh air.
· Until June 17. Box office: 0870 060 6632.
