A secret garden and a Narnia-style lamppost. Robert Holman's achingly beautiful new play takes you into other worlds, but it is rooted firmly in this one. It begins with an elderly man hugging a wall for comfort while apparently being threatened by a young hoodie, but nothing is quite what it seems in this intriguing two-hander. This is a recklessly courageous play about two men struggling to find the courage to live, love and to be the best possible version of themselves. But, like its characters, there is something shy about it, even as it looks the audience squarely in the eye.
Ian McDiarmid plays Otto, a 62-year-old clergyman who no longer believes in God because "God doesn't believe in me". He goes through the motions, but he is cut off from love and life, corroded by loneliness. "The point of having no friends is that you also have no enemies," he says lightly. But an unlikely friendship is forming between him and 26-year-old Jonah (Andrew Sheridan), who is passing through on his way to somewhere else, a six-week-old baby in tow in a supermarket trolley. Damaged Jonah is a magician of sorts, and as his path intersects with Otto's for less than 24 hours, they peer into each other's hearts and painfully uncover the truth.
For a while you wonder about this relationship. Is Otto perhaps Jonah's father, or a father substitute? Does a homoerotic undercurrent run through their dealings with each other? Is Jonah a fallen angel? Holman is too scrupulous and delicate a writer to vulgarly spell anything out, and, while Clare Lizzimore's beautifully judged production and designer Paul Burgess' twisted tree may fleetingly evoke Waiting for Godot, this play remains elusive in the most strangely satisfying way. There is an extraordinary scene in which the sleeping Otto is robbed of his clothes and in the process discovers himself. It is as if his skin, not his suit, has been peeled away.
The play's quietness demands superlative performances, and it gets them: there is something brittle about McDiarmid's bright-eyed Otto, as if he might splinter into a thousand pieces like a cracked vase, and Sheridan is utterly beguiling as Jonah. "Love," suggests Otto, "is paying attention." This play demands your attention and repays it generously.
· Until April 5. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
