The subject matter is fascinating, the direction imaginative and the performances tireless. So why is Tara Arts' production of Nirjay Mahindru's first play so draining?
The answer is the lack of a decent story. For all the flair of Jatinder Verma's production, there is no character compelling enough nor dilemma troubling enough to justify our engagement. So the more the six zingy actors skip, back flip, jump character and generally run through all the tricks of the physical theatre handbook, the more alienated we become.
This is a shame because Mahindru's play, part of the company's project exploring pre-colonial Anglo-Indian relations, touches on fresh territory. Set in the Bombay court of King Mandragora, it shows, from an Indian perspective, the arrival of a pioneering party of "chalky white" British nobles. The Indian reaction to the first white man is a neat inversion of the colonialist attitudes to come: "Is it possible it is a member of the reptilian family?" they ask.
But this - along with Mahindru's curious suggestion that colonisation was some kind of early Blairite scheme - is an incidental detail rather than the play's dramatic heart. Instead of investigating what race relations might mean in a pre-colonial society, he leads us in an inconsequential yarn about a stolen diamond. This he pads out with an equally superficial subplot, adapted from Bottom's tale in A Midsummer Night's Dream, about a man tricked into wearing a bra for a month. Despite the company's efforts, it isn't funny. The cod-Shakespearean dialogue is similarly laboured - more Star Wars' Yoda than the Bard. Impressive it is that they perform with such verve, but more draining they make it.
· At the Lemon Tree, Aberdeen (01224 642230), tonight, then touring.
