Fraser Grace's last play, Breakfast With Mugabe, which last week won him the John Whiting Award, was about power, its abuse and madness in present-day Zimbabwe. His latest, commissioned and produced by new writing company Menagerie, is about power, its application and the madness of expansionist dreams in 16th-century England. It is an interesting and honourable failure - one of those plays I'm pleased to have seen, and even more pleased not to have to see again. It has so much going for it that I can't quite put my finger on why it doesn't entirely work on stage.
Here, the aging Queen Elizabeth I is irked by the infidelities of her lover - Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex - and by the expansionist successes of Spain. When an explorer turns up demanding finance for an Arctic expedition, the conflicting desires of her heart and head become entwined.
Peerlessly acted by a superb cast led by Janet Suzman, this is a rare play that gets better the longer it chunters on. Up to the interval, it is a tedious historical drama. But with the arrival of Elizabeth in the Arctic wastes, the whole thing suddenly bursts into surreal life. In the second half the play dazzles with its wit and wordplay - although it remains as cold-hearted as the glittering ice.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 0870 033 2600.
