David Cregan's new play reveals a passionate concern with Iraq, global capitalism and environmental decay. But, while his social conscience does him credit, I wish he could have found a more plausible plot on which to hang his thoughts.
The story hinges on the determination of country-bred, 91-year-old Toby to buy part of the vast, adjacent garden belonging to Gerald, a lecherous entrepreneur. For inexplicable reasons, Toby's family - including his dithering son, actressy daughter-in-law and ecologically concerned grandson - think the purchase will be the death of him and do everything in their power to stop it. Ariadne, the daughter-in-law, even offers to sleep with Gerald to stop the sale; although, since she is an anti-war marcher and he a rabid right-winger, it makes for a prickly liaison.
Cregan's model is clearly Shaw's Heartbreak House: another country-garden play in which the leisured classes confront naked power in the shadow of global catastrophe. Unlike Shaw, Cregan lacks the courage of his convictions and refuses to acknowledge that he is writing a disquisitory piece. Significantly, the play takes off once he sacrifices plot to debate as in an angry clash between a trainee teacher and the exploitative Gerald, who smugly believes he can benefit himself and the south-east Asians by turning their shops into giant supermarkets. Cregan also has a sharp eye for individual eccentricity, as in his portrait of a xenophobic cook who caps her itemised catalogue of national loathing with: "And then there's Sweden."
Even if Joyce Branagh's production can't disguise the play's improbabilities, it looks verdantly elegant in Sam Dowson's design and matches this theatre's usual high acting standards. Miranda Foster as the sexually self-sacrificing Ariadne, Robert Benfield as her complaisant husband and Eve Shickle as the grumbling cook are all first rate. But while Cregan's play hinges on the quest for a plot of ground, I wish its political debates were grounded in a less whimsical plot.
· Until November 6. Box office: 020-8940 3633.
