Boozers with the blues

Michael's pub isn't so much the last-chance saloon as the place that hope forgot - a desolate drinking hole dominated by flock wallpaper and an assortment of local failures who come to prop up the bar.

Dejection eats into every detail - whether it's the slop of rancid milk Michael (Alan Williams) pours into heavily laced coffee, or the apology of Christmas decorations around the door - and the sounds of Frank seem merely to mock this vision of social catatonia.

Alcoholic classics such as Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh and Conor McPherson's The Weir have famously revealed blues-ridden boozers to be fertile dramatic fare. Simon Stephens's addition to the genre is peppered with such humorous details as nicotine-addicted rabbits, fat greyhounds and philosophical observations on football highlights, but the play doesn't quite add up to the sum of its often enjoyable parts.

With a narrative arc of personal tragedies that seems somewhat forced, it is only with the arrival of Paul Ritter's angst-ridden postman, with a cello to sell, that it becomes clear why we're acting as silent witnesses to these losers.

He exudes a carefully calibrated bitterness through dead eyes, slumped shoulders and a laconic drawl, yet although there is no visible spark, his presence is electric as he scornfully challenges his companions' lives.

It may seem strange to stage a play called Christmas when memories of mince-pie-induced dyspepsia are still fresh. However, this is not seasonal drama fallen prey to the absurdities of theatre programming - Stephens simply uses Christmas to emphasise his characters' loneliness, whether it's Lee Ross's Billy, a monobraincelled builder with a dope-smoking mother, or Bernard Gallagher's Seppo, an old Italian hairdresser haunted by love for his dead wife.

Jo McInnes's extremely well-acted production cannot hide this play's structural flaws, and it is easy to see Stephens's puppet strings animating his meticulously drawn characters. Even so, this first play in a miniseason of Pearson-prizewinning playwrights' work promises enough to ensure a hopeful return visit.

Christmas