It's hard to care about this race drama

Melanie and Railton meet while upside down on the Revolution ride at the fairground. She throws up; he calls her "blondie"; they share a spliff. It looks as though this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, until the issue of Railton's membership of the BNP crops up.

The alarming increase in support, and electoral gains, for far-Right parties in this country is undoubtedly a topic in search of a playwright. Despite Fair's many good intentions, Joy Wilkinson is not that writer, as her script veers uneasily between the earnest and the awkward.

In Helen Eastman's snappy production, the slew of brief scenes beneath the multicoloured lights of the fair or on the Waltzer that doubles as a sofa initially paint Matthew Wilson's Railton as the decisive, charismatic one.

His campaign is against "anti-white racism" and for the preservation of his heritage. In short, he knows what he stands for, unlike Rebecca Everett's nervy, guilt-ridden, woolly liberal graduate Melanie, who is trying to organise a pancommunity event to mark the anniversary of this northern town's race riots.

Yet Wilkinson perforce has a plot to unravel, which here necessitates an unsatisfactory shuffling towards some ill-defined centre ground by both parties.

Perhaps Mel is taking multiculturalism and political correctness a little too far; perhaps Railton's late Dad, who crops up as a vengeful ghost in a variety of daft masks, is actually a nutcase rather than a former champion of the people. Perhaps, after the umpteenth inconclusive exchange between this couple, who are worryingly prone to vomiting in each other's company, we don't care all that much.

Watching Fair become increasingly so-so, one can only imagine what a writer such as David Hare would make of so potentially explosive a subject.

Fair