Photo: Tristram Kenton
Having come out of international retirement to fire Sweden into the quarter finals of Euro 2004, I cannot imagine that Henrik Larsson would be bothered to learn that he's being used as a dartboard in Liverpool. But Katie Douglas's debut play is about the tribal jealousies and limited horizons that invariably find their expression through violence.
Frank is an inarticulate bully stuck in his home town in the west of Scotland. His concerns are pretty fundamental: weans, wife, joab, hame, fishing. And firing darts at Celtic's leading striker, of course. He finds solace sitting beside the filthy river because he enjoys impaling maggots: "in through the arse and out through the eyes".
What his emotionally abused wife Louise doesn't realise is that Frank has several hundred quid stashed in his bait tin, along with a bus timetable detailing his escape. It takes the return of his schoolfriend Sammy, Louise's brother, to open this particular can of worms.
For a young writer, Douglas has already discovered the power of leaving things unsaid. She hooks the emotional heart of a situation and reels it in with dialogue as taut as a straining fishing line.
She is aided by the admirable pace and clarity of Matthew Lloyd's production, and the performances are a fine catch as well. David Jenkins is furrowed and forlorn as Sammy, Eve Dallas is touchingly oppressed and vulnerable as the sister he left behind.
But the evening is dominated by Simon Donaldson's fiery-eyed Frank. Douglas sets you up to dislike him: by the end of the evening you have fallen for him hook, line and sinker.
· Until July 10. Box office: 0151-709 4776.
