Art

It was a clever move on the part of the producers to bring in the League Of Gentlemen for the final run of Art - this is an unashamedly crowdpleasing offering from Royston Vasey's finest, each of whom give performances in a similar vein to those of their TV personas.

Steve Pemberton (pictured, right, with Reece Shearsmith) hams it up as Marc, who hates the white painting Serge has bought so much he is prepared to break up their 15-year friendship over it: his long, sonorous sentences a selfconscious echo of Edward the shopkeeper. And several times all three could be in a scene from their uncle and aunt sketch.

None of this really suits the play, however, which demands a degree of subtlety to stay plausible. And as Yasmina Reza's observations on art criticism are starting to show their age, a bit more space and quiet would have opened up the play's depths.

Icarus is a salesman for Punches stationery, equipped only with his native charm and an endless supply of free attachÈ cases. The pressure to close deals in the cut-throat world of envelopes has turned him into a compulsive liar so, when he meets a nightclub hostess who, in her desire to be all things to all men, has developed the same habit, their relationship turns into a difficult, comic and touching affair. Beside the young lovers are Icarus's equally louche associates, and their therapist Hope, who lives in a state of perpetual questing for the perfectly mad patient.