It can be really irritating when people do not switch off their mobile phones in the theatre. Particularly when it's the cast. But Sol B River's play depends on the short-hand communication of SMS for its dramatic development.
A young girl held captive and abused sends a desperate text-message to a stranger she hopes can help her. A hip mixed-race gang of friends receive the call, but seem to take an awfully long time to do anything about it.
The programme for this strange, live action/electronic hybrid comes with a rather pointless number to which the audience can text their responses after the show, as well as contact details for the Samaritans and the NSPCC, which gives you a strong foretaste of its content. The difficulty is that such emotive subject matter may seem mere pretext for a display of multimedia wizardry. River references everything from Playstation games to cult cop shows. And I'm not entirely convinced that the outbreaks of dub poetry add to the experience. But to its credit, Joe Williams's production just about pulls everything together.
Though the technology is great, the dramaturgy is unreliable. At the point at which the pace should be accelerating towards its climax, it slackens into a sequence of soul-searching duologues. It's hard to understand the priorities of characters who know they have an abuse victim to find, but choose to stand around finding themselves first.
The acting is all perfectly credible, however. There is an astonishing, acutely harrowing performance from Zoe Thorne as the child victim; and Neil Reidman impressively negotiates the unlikely transition from Playstation slacker to knight in bling-bling armour.
Ultimately, an idea that would benefit from a short, sharp treatment ends up feeling dilatory and diffuse. Not so much a text message as a long, rambling email.
· Until November 1. Box office: 0113-213 7700.
