While You Lie

What happens when a woman asks “does my bum look big in this?” for the hundredth time and her boyfriend suggests that perhaps it does – then goes a step further past the point of no return by saying her body image fixation is driving him away.

This, broadly speaking, is the starting point for Sam Holcroft's new play, which begins by asking where the lines are drawn between lying and reassurance and paints a bleakly surreal picture of where total honesty in relationships might lead.

It's an intriguing premise, and given the skill with which Holcroft captured the dynamics of a group of high schoolers in her 2008 debut, Cockroach, one might reasonably have expected 90 minutes of thought-provoking stuff.

Unfortunately, While You Lie is, for the most part, an overblown drama about a young woman with unexplored psychological issues, and the impact her refusal to address them has on those around her.

There's certainly an interesting play to be written about an educated eastern European immigrant who ends up trading her body in Britain, but this isn't it. Instead, Holcroft seems interested in trying to draw broader conclusions about women, sex and the impossible quest for physical perfection.

With the arrival of a silver-tongued salesman, the tone shifts towards A Cosmetologist Calls as both secretary Ana (Claire Lams) and heavily pregnant mother-of-one Helen (Pauline Knowles) decide that drastic plastic surgery is the answer to their respective problems. Their bewitching culminates in a bizarre scene of collective hysteria.

There are flashes of great promise in the script – the early scenes of relationship meltdown contain some poisonous gems, and a symbolic sub-plot involving an inquisitive five-year-old unfolds brilliantly – but elsewhere there are glaring mis-steps and lazy ideas. The fact that Sex And The City 2 more convincingly addressed the need to weigh up a nanny's attractiveness against her childcare credentials does not say much for the script-wrangling process at the Traverse.

Zinnie Harris's production is certainly never dull, and the performances are generally of a high standard (with Lams and Knowles particularly strong), but attempts to shock fall completely flat and what's left is both superficial and instantly forgettable.