Love hurts, but it is the audience that takes a battering in Rebecca Lenkiewicz's tale of life down amongst the artists in Shoreditch. Michael, Nick and Hodge are three young artists-turned-entrepreneurs running a gallery in a derelict space in London's East End. They have a major event coming up: a forum with the legendary Devlin, a once-great painter whose life and creativity have been destroyed by personal tragedy and his inability to maintain control over his penis.
The reappearance of Devlin's former student and lover Martha ups the stakes, and soon everybody - all paralysed by loss in one way or another - is getting very sad, very drunk, having, or not having, lots of sex, bleeding all over the bed linen and then discovering that redemption and happiness may be possible after all.
Lenkiewicz's play is full of witty banter and surface polish and it has been given a high gloss finish in a production by Sean Matthias. But, like the script, it's all style and no discernable substance. It is as if it has accidentally misplaced its heart in the rush to be hip and cool. There is also a gap between Lenkiewicz's extraordinary facility with language and the way the language is layered within the play. There are plenty of funny fizzing lines, but they are seldom embedded in character or narrative.
What's more, the sexual politics are pre-Raphaelite, subscribing to the myth that while men do, women weep, wail and wait around holding the baby, waiting for sex to take them out of their misery, or in the case of Martha, fulfilling the role of a definitely-not-virgin Mary. There are saving graces: two scenes in the second half have an artless grace, and there are two terrific performances from Lee Ingleby as Hodge and Francesca Annis as Martha.
· Until August 6. Box office: 0870 429 6883.
