Is This About Sex?

A man asks a shop assistant for advice on buying a bra - for himself. And then knickers, stockings, tights and dresses.

By the time he has stumbled his way through these requests Daniel has struck up a tentative relationship with Cathy. In the meantime their respective partners, Kay and Paul, are having an affair during their lunch breaks at work. As for Kay's best friend Angela, she knows exactly what's going on - except that she doesn't.

In answer to the title question, this Irish play is about sex, but it's also about food, about appetites, about relationships and above all it's about love.

For the most part it's a sharp and funny comedy dealing with the absurdities of men and women and the way they treat each other. By the end though it becomes a genuinely touching romance that has the courage to end on a quiet dying fall.

Rough Magic's last two Edinburgh visits produced big, intensely theatrical works. This is different, more straightforward and lower key but no less theatrical for all that.

The acting is uniformly stylish. Darragh Kelly is perfect as solid, dependable, kindly Daniel, whether he's wearing a dress or not. Hilary O'Shaughnessy is lovely as Cathy, bored in bed with Paul (when her toes overact wonderfully) and transported with Daniel in drag. Rory Nolan is a delight as Paul, ever obsessed with the speed of his arousal technique. Ali White has great fun with Kay's desperate need to eat her lunch, sex or no sex. She's also very good in her closing scenes when Kay's world alters. Ruth Hegarty gives us Angela's blinkered viewpoint in splendid deadpan style.

There's a versatile set by Paul O'Mahony within the new theatre space created in the Drill Hall, where outside noises tended to echo rather unfortunately. But nothing could really distract from the wit and sharpness of Lynn Parker's elegant production.