Simon Bent's second play in the Transformation season opens with a crackling radio announcing that a bomb has exploded in London. Moments later we meet Watson, a seemingly innocuous pensioner with a suspiciously large collection of gas cylinders, fireworks and alarm clocks. And the interval is still some way off when we hear Watson passionately describe the bomber as "a man of high moral principle". The influence of Harold Pinter snakes through The Associate. But one thing Bent didn't learn from Pinter is the art of suspense.
Bent clearly intends that not everything his characters say should be taken at face value. Did Watson's wife really commit suicide? Did Ray, the painter hired by the council to redecorate Watson's house, really have an oedipal relationship with his mother? The trouble is, what the characters say is sometimes so implausible that the notion of untrustworthiness becomes irrelevant.
We are told too much, and disbelieve too much, for The Associate to work as a menacing drama. As a portrait of a society tearing at the seams, however, the play is consistently gripping and blackly humorous. Watson's cry, "Everything's falling apart, you've only got to look at the young," echoes through it like a chorus; and, in the character of Tiny, Ray's co-worker, we see what he means.
Tiny is good-natured but lacks any sense of social responsibility: he claims benefit while working, prefers sleeping with prostitutes to real relationships, and lives to have fun. He has nothing to believe in. God once filled that void for Watson; now all he believes in are "bits of dust and atoms". But his manner of dealing with his sense of despair - placing bombs in supermarkets and telephone boxes - leaves a lot to be desired.
The characters' arguments and attempts at one-upmanship have a wonderfully buoyant rhythm in Paul Miller's Lyttelton Loft production; the intermittent bursts of violence are less persuasive. Even when the play isn't convincing, however, the cast - John Normington as the cunning Watson, Matthew Rhys as carefree Tiny and Nicholas Tennant as the bitter Ray - ensure that it is compelling.
· Until August 31. Box office: 020-7452 3000.
