You won't get many belly laughs from this Keith Waterhouse play.
What you do get in this bittersweet tale of a love affair is bags of grief, a close look at jealousy, love and something of an insight into how we blunder about in our personal relationships.
This is Waterhouse, Brighton's adopted son who has now absconded to Bath, with a dark edge and none the worse for it.
He writes in good, plain English and, here, gets his words beautifully delivered, mostly by the highly commanding Peter Bowles.
Director Ned Sherrin, who collaborated with Waterhouse in Jeffery Bernard Is Unwell, uses a similar episodic method of telling the tale. It works superbly.
In what is essentially a two-hander between Bowles and Charlotte Emmerson, it is the former who dominates.
Caroline Langrishe and the rest of the cast are highly efficient but act almost as ghosts.
Bowles plays Roger Piper, a middle-aged partner in an advertising firm, who falls for the enigmatic Angie (Emmerson) when she gatecrashes his son's christening party. He is immediately taken and what he first perceives as lust becomes love.
Our Song is an examination of obsession but there are enigmas. Why does she take so long to sleep with him, why won't she allow him into her flat and why is she at first guarded and then furious with him when he questions her about her life?
Bowles brilliantly captures the excitement, frustrations and exasperations of a love affair. By the end, he looks as though he has lived every second of the 16-month affair in a manner so demanding he achieves an exhausted look you would swear was real.
Ultimately, this play is a tantalising piece of theatre.
It leaves you with lots of unanswered questions about the characters but that is probably just what Waterhouse wanted and isn't it just like life?
For tickets and information, call 01273 328488.
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