Don't call us

To write a relatively snappy script is one thing. To bring it to life is quite another. Had Lab Ky Mo opted for someone else to direct his play, rather than himself, this might have been a more enjoyable evening.

Dougal is en route to work on the 26 bus when a bomb fails to go off. Naturally, he's late - a heinous crime in the world of the call centre, although Nick, his boss, only docks him 15 minutes' pay. Throughout the day there are several more bomb scares in London, not that the call centre staff know much about it: their relentless cold-calling stops for no man, let alone a bomb.

There are several cracking one-liners here, not least those that play fast and loose with ethnic tension - weary, dead-eyed Nick's frustration with Saeed's demands to pray outside his allotted break times, for example.

Ky Mo is certainly better at wisecracks than he is at moralising but even as his focus on the July bombings grows ever weaker, the real problem remains the staging. Ky Mo seems to have confused evoking for emulating: while he captures something of the call centre's inhumane ethos, the production is often as flat and lifeless as a telephone directory. This isn't helped by several mediocre performances, although Matthew Coombes as straight-talking Nick (pictured), peps things up where he can.

Ky Mo has the bones of something but needs to work out what he's trying to say, and indeed, how to say it.

Until Nov 10, Hackney Empire Studios, 291 Mare Street E8, Mon to Sat 7.30pm, £12, £9 concs. Tel: 020 8985 2424. Rail: Hackney Central

Five Tanks
Hackney Empire
Mare Street, E8 1EJ