Paul Lucas has developed a personal brand of screwball comedy, familiar from previous plays like All That Trouble That We Had, premiered at The Door, and The Dice House, first staged at the Belgrade and then revived in London by Birmingham Stage Company.
The trouble is that, even at its best, Lucas's writing seems balanced on a knife-edge between being zany and merely irritating. Despite some effective and genuinely funny moments, this new play as a whole comes down on the wrong side of the balancing act.
The plot is almost too silly to describe. Two dead dentists have been found, apparently murdered in bizarre ways, each with their faces smeared with lipstick.
It's a case for squeamish and shambolic detective Edwards and his partner Thornton, aided by Malcolm, a criminologist with a brilliantly insightful mind but a messed-up love life owing to his paranoia.
In fact, all three have disastrous relationships with women and if the play is about anything it's male relationships and the predisposition to think the best or the worst of people.
There is certainly some inventive material on this theme especially a protracted scene in which Malcolm, having lost his rag with Edwards, brings him flowers which he discovers too late carry an inappropriate symbolism.
Chloe Lamford's set, with a backdrop of shelves stacked high with detritus from unsolved cases, reflects the awkwardness of these relationships. Edwards's office is too small and cluttered for two, let alone three, people to interact with any degree of comfort.
Richard Katz as Malcolm, Jon Foster as Thornton and particularly Angus Barnett as Edwards make these three vulnerable oddballs sympathetic, but it's still difficult to care much about how the mystery unravels.
