Family affairs

Adriano Shaplin's caustic black comedy, performed by California's The Riot Group, was honoured with a Fringe First at Edinburgh this year.

A fast-paced, one-act show, billed as a reworking of King Lear, it revolves around a father and daughter, James and K Mann, who are pitched against each other as rival TV news anchors.

Their spats, conducted mainly over the telephone as they sit in their respective studios, become increasingly heated as the pressure to be the best presenter mounts, and are sent into overdrive when a September 11-style attack is perpetrated in New York.

There are some excellent performances here from Stephanie Viola as K and Paul Schnabel as James, both slowly crumbling under entirely unneccesary pressures, and some sharply funny lines ('I thought he was Clark Kent to my Superman. Now I think he's the Ronald Reagan to my crack mother,' moans James about his back-stabbing assistant).

But, as a dramatic piece, Victory At The Dirt Palace seems unsure what it wants to be: as an attack on the American over-emphasis on news anchors rather than the news, it doesn't manage anything very original; as a modern look at Lear, it doesn't really move far from that play's first scene, with Cordelia defying her father's expectations.

Shaplin, showing a fascination for playing with language, switches between rapid, clipped dialogue to overblown poetical outpourings that are not all that easy to follow, especially when delivered by K at eardrum-splitting volume. And the emphasis on K's sexual peccadilloes seems rather superfluous.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting experiment and rewards concentration.

Until Feb 1, Riverside Studios, Crisp Road W6, Mon to Sat 8pm, Sat 9.30pm, £10 to £12, £6 to £8 concs. Tel: 020 8237 1111. Tube: Hammersmith

Victory At The Dirt Palace