Unlike England, which, from Shakespeare to Pinter, has a distinguished playwriting tradition, Scotland's great artists (Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hugh MacDiarmid) have tended to write for the page rather than the stage. Perhaps this is why Scotland puts such a burden of expectation on its young playwrights.
Isabel Wright is the latest budding dramatist to labour under the yoke of the "star playwright" tag. One only hopes that she can resist this pressure as she continues to find her theatrical voice.
Mr Placebo deals with six very different men in a Glasgow hospital. Four - Tariq, Ben, Jude and Howie - are on the same ward, an almost hermetically sealed environment. They are the guinea pigs in nurse Silas's clinical trials. Each has his own reasons for taking part; most need the "expenses" offered by the drugs company. Tariq is desperately trying to fund his wife's agonisingly ineffective IVF treatment. Disillusioned young rock critic Jude, meanwhile, slips out to visit his dangerously ill father, Frank, on another ward.
This is not a play about the pharmaceutical industry, or even about illness. It is a drama about our dissatisfaction with the options granted us by the modern world. Jude mourns the dead rock gods Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, and cries out for someone who "gives a fuck".
Self-conscious hard man Howie, part anarchist, part fascist psychopath, celebrates his refusal to live the life of marriage, kids and mortgage. Yet his constant, misdirected rage belies his claims to happiness.
There is a deep humanity in the writing, not least in its nicely wrought moments of humour. Yet Wright's deftness of touch is not always evident in the structure, and the play's conclusion, although darkly comic, is somewhat predictable. Wilson Milam offers well-balanced direction to a strong cast, while Dick Bird's set is appropriately clinical yet functional.
· Until March 1. Box office: 0131-228 1404 . Then at the Drum Theatre, Plymouth from March 6. Box office: 01752 267222.
