Duke of York's Theatre, London WC2
Under the Blue Sky begins with a deafening boom: this must be the Canary Wharf bomb of 1996. Sadly, the inaugural sound effect is the only point at which David Eldridge's 1999 drama might be described as 'explosive'.
The playwright seems to have suffered the misapprehension of a 13-year-old in thinking that there is something inherently thrilling about the private lives of teachers. Worse, these relationships, examined in three short plays, are frustratingly adolescent. Nick and Helen (Chris O'Dowd and Lisa Dillon) giggle and hit each other's bums with tea towels. Regal, poised Francesca Annis and Nigel Lindsay's bumbling, sitcom-style Robert seem to come from two different plays. Catherine Tate and Dominic Rowan provide the most interest, with Tate as the bawdy maths teacher intent on bedding a nerdy lab assistant. But the darkness of the situation is played for easy laughs.
Throughout, the square-framed wooden box of the set is strangely reminiscent of a television - an unfortunate reminder that when it comes to dramatising the love lives of Nineties thirtysomethings, Cold Feet did it so much better.
