My first thought on leaving the world premiere of Robert Holman's new play was that his mother must have been frightened in pregnancy by Harold Pinter.

Actually, that was my second thought. The first was to get some feeling back into my backside after the three-and-a-half-hour production Holes In The Skin, a play full of potential, contains so many dramatic pauses a la Pinter, the whole play becomes a string of gaps linked by words.

Pinter's plays may be bleak, opaque and obscure of meaning but they do not go on like Holman's.

It does, however, begin well. 15-year-old Kerry lives with her mother on a run-down council estate somewhere in the North. Kerry hates it and hates being abused by her mother's lover.

In the local playground, she meets Lee, a drug addict. Lee is strung out on heroin, has done time for assault and is a small-time burglar.

With him is his brother Ewan, a vicious thug who deals drugs. Both fall for Kerry and when she asks that her abuser is put in hospital, it is Ewan who obliges - with fatal results.

So far so good and when Lee's teacher - who is maybe his lover too - tries to protect him from the tragic consequences, the stage is set for a gritty documentary-style examination of tough lives.

But to this the writer then adds the teacher's incestuous relationship with her father, with whom she has had a son.

Ah, you think this is a Greek tragedy in the making and no doubt it will all end in an orgy of violence.

So you sit there and you wait and you wait and you wait. Finally, it does end but with a whimper.

Frankly, Holes In The Skin is a mess. It is a long whinge about people who all seem incapable of communicating.

No story is ever developed. There is no one you care about, although all the characters have the potential to become extremely powerful.

The acting from the ensemble cast is probably the best it can get. Holman and director Simon Usher need to do some urgent work on the script.

It needs to be much, tighter, more concentrated and needs to decide which direction it wants to go in.

I wanted to know far more about the characters and their stories.

To me, Holes In The Skin is more like a work in progress than a finished production.

It is far too long, too self-indulgent and too obscure.

For tickets, call 01243 781312.