In the week when the Scottish Arts Council has withdrawn funding from 7:84, there would have been tremendous poetic justice if the theatre company had been out and about with the kind of brash, popular and polemical show with which it made its name 33 years ago. Alas, Christopher Deans' dreary domestic drama is not going to do artistic director Lorenzo Mele any favours as he seeks to change the Council's minds before the cash runs out in August. If the play doesn't in itself justify the closure of one of Scotland's busiest companies, and the attendant programme of community work, it gives little indication of an organisation with a finger on the political - or theatrical - pulse.
Although it's unclear what Deans is trying to say, his thesis seems to be that the right-to-buy policy of the Thatcher government, which enabled council house tenants to become owners of their own property, has had damaging long-term consequences. Central to the play are John and Cathy (Dave Anderson and Hope Ross), who, unable to keep up with their mortgage payments, are being evicted from their home. Having bought out of the state that once protected them, they are helpless and defeated.
The play also seems to suggest that Thatcherite acquisitiveness has led to a social breakdown. The couple's high-earning daughter hangs on to her money; their aid worker son deals better with problems abroad than at home; and their enigmatic teenage neighbour can express himself only through vandalism, arson and possibly violence.
The play's metaphor, often repeated but never explained, suggests that this is a society in free-fall, like a skydiver whose parachute has failed to open. But these themes are latent rather than articulated, and the characters are underdeveloped; the drama is as inconsequential as Mele's languid production.
· At the Geoff Shaw Centre, Toryglen, tomorrow. Box office: 0141-334 6686. Then touring.
