Roddy came to Britain from the Caribbean in the 1960s and has spent his life working on the railways by day and playing with his model railway by night. The land of milk and honey has turned out to be one of bread and water, but Roddy believes that you do the best you can, work as hard as you can - and make do with your lot.
His son Trevor is very different. Trevor is young, cocky and wouldn't dream of sticking a job he doesn't like: "At least I can look myself in the mirror and say I ain't no slave." He has no education, no prospects, children by two different women and a criminal record. Now he is in really big trouble, having been discovered in a stolen car with a massive drug haul. But in this instance Trevor might not be quite as guilty as the police claim.
Mark Norfolk's three-hander whiles away 75 minutes and is very decently acted, but it is so ordinary, so lacking in real passion or edge-of-the-seat writing, that you really wonder why it is on stage at all. It is not bad, it is just not nearly distinctive enough. Its story of conflict between generations - the fathers who came here and the sons who were born here - is a familiar one, and the spilling of family secrets doesn't add another layer to the drama, but merely makes it spill over into soap opera. It is a play that provides lots of information but precious little subtext or meaning. Like a TV soap opera, it is what it is and no more.
This is not to suggest that Norfolk doesn't have a future as a writer, although it may not necessarily be in the theatre. Rather it suggests that the normally sparky Soho Theatre must be pretty desperate if this is the best that all its script development and writer-attachment schemes can produce. There is a real difference between showcasing a writer's work and exposing it, and sadly this dull, take-it-or leave-it evening is a case of wrong play and wrong place.
· Until October 25. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
