Compelling, perverse Fishbowl

Giddy schoolboys Fish and Leto like nothing better than to go to the school basement and peer through a crack into the ladies' loo.

Working themselves into a sexual frenzy, they make up their minds to 'give it to a girl'. The details of what they do next remain hazy - it happens offstage - but afterwards they take up full-time residence in their subterranean pit.

Ignacio Apolo's compellingly perverse study of volatile adolescent friendships combines the spirit of Sartre's existential classic Huis Clos and some dark Beckettian clowning with Catholic sensibility.

In its most inspired passages, as when the increasingly maternal Fish pushes his fingers into Leto's wounds, Apolo's award-winning play is reminiscent of Pedro Almoduvar's disturbing comedy of sociopathology Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

Belle Mundy's set design is full of subtle claustrophobic menace - cut wires dangle from the ceiling, suggestive of fresh avenues of horror.

There are fine performances from Alex Waldmann and Kevin Trainor. Skilful as they are, though, the young actors can't stop you feeling something has been lost in translation.

Until Oct 23, Theatre 503, Latchmere Pub, Battersea Park Road SW11, Tue to Sat 8pm, Sun 5pm, £8, £6 concs. Tel: 020 7978 7040. Rail: Clapham Junction

Fishbowl