Farceing the issues

It's Christmas Eve and two painfully inept policemen are trying to pluck up the courage to ring a doorbell. Inside, an elderly couple are waiting for their daughter, blissfully unaware that she has been killed in a car crash.

The policemen's efforts to impart this information are the subject of Anthony Neilson's modern new farce, which, despite its terrific structure, is never as clever, cruel or funny as it should be.

With the exception of Patrick Godfrey's father, these characters, from the transvestite vicar to the militant, working-class mother from Parents Against Paedophile Scum, are exaggerated to the level of pantomime.

Events convincingly snowball around Thomas Fisher and Darrell D'Silva's hapless PCs Goebbel and Blunt, but the production is clumsy. Farce is a tantalising medium for a playwright such as Neilson, but without believable characters, his bitter truths are lost.

Until Jan 11, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, Sloane Square SW1, Mon to Sat 7.30pm, Sat mats 3.30pm, £7.50 to £26. Tel: 020 7565 5000. www.royalcourttheatre.com Tube: Sloane Square

The Lying Kind