Will and Cait have retreated to the countryside to raise organic vegetables and publish children's books. They publicise their new venture by producing a Christmas card featuring their charming new home, but accidentally send one to Griff, the one man who should have been deleted from their address book a long time ago.
Glyn Cannon's play is all about the nature of chance and the potential of past mistakes to suddenly resurface - though you could say that a couple smug enough to send out an indiscriminate mailshot advertising their success on the property market deserve everything they get.
The central performance of Matt Aston's production is rather wooden, though forgivably so, given that it is provided by a table. This sturdy piece of farmhouse pine - which, apart from a few equally rustic chairs and flagstones, forms the sole feature of Helen Fownes Davies's set - bears a great deal of symbolic weight, plus that of Cait herself, who we repeatedly see being pleasured on it by the taciturn but remarkably persistent Griff.
Cannon sketches out a plausible synopsis of the self-destructive impulses that lead people into temptation. But he blunts the emotional edge of the action with an overly schematic design. Will (Stephen Hudson) is a former intellectual rights lawyer who only really lights up when delivering abstruse lectures on the constituency of ideas. Griff (Steve Jackson) believes in asserting his individuality by roughly assaulting his hostess. Emma Pike's morally confused Cait responds with the line: "Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea." Perhaps she has a point.
· Until March 31. Box office: 0115-846 7777.
