The Stephen Joseph Theatre is devoting this month to its First Foot season, which artistic director Alan Ayckbourn describes as an opportunity for up-and-coming dramatists to see their work on stage. As the distinguished author of the Neighbour and the Editing Process, Meredith Oakes has already seen her work on stage at the Royal Court and the National Theatre, and could be forgiven for wondering how this nursery rhetoric applies to her. Of the other two authors in the season, Gill Adams is writer-in-residence at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and has an acclaimed production history at Hull Truck, while Paul Lucas has had his plays performed at Birmingham Rep, so it seems strange that Scarborough should be touting them as discoveries.
For a genuine first-timer, the season's constraints of short runs and strict budgets could be a godsend. But it could also be argued that the part-production ethic does established writers no favours at all. Oakes's ambitiously sharp satire on everyday nest-feathering emerges flaccid and formless, like something that has been pulled from the oven half-baked.
Her premise is a shady property agent who sublets his high-class old folks' apartments to dubious East European businessmen on the side. The result is a high-octane mix of alcoholic old ladies and neurotic Russian arms dealers that inevitably reaches an explosive conclusion.
Perhaps producing Oakes's latest play on a shoestring is preferable to not producing it at all, but the overwhelming result of the season's developmental remit is to return everything to the two clear priorities of fortnightly rep: remembering the lines and not bumping into the furniture.
The second of these challenges is the more easily accomplished, for there is very little in the way of solid obstruction. The first is trickier - Oakes's script is a wordy tract that seeks to match a Shavian sense of paradox to an Orton-esque passion for farce. Even such an excellent director as Annie Castledine has difficulty achieving such a fine balance in the available time.
· Until February 16. Box office: 01723 370541.
