Les Dennis's gruesome acts

There are many sights one never expects to see. Les Dennis drugging a woman, strangling her, then hacking the body to pieces, before retiring to catch The Archers, is one.

So macabre is the opening scene of Anthony Shaffer's 1975 comic thriller, Murderer, that what follows simply can't live up to this early promise.

It's not the cast's fault. All eyes are on Dennis's obsessed painter Norman Bartholomew, not only due to his TV profile, which you easily forget, but because he's rarely off stage, getting caught in the web he spins between mistress (Lisa Kay), wife (Caroline Langrishe) and the meddling Sergeant Stenning (George Potts). The staging is a plus, too, with the gruesome acts partly concealed in dim rooms, behind gauze.

No, the issue is with Shaffer's script. Bartholomew is so clearly a nutter, it's hard to imagine him having a wife, let alone a mistress, and both ready to contemplate murder. One character puts it thus: 'Phooey.' As dated as the elbow patches on Sergeant Stenning's jacket.

Until Jan 22, Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre, 51-53 Southwark Street SE1, Tue to Sat 8pm, Sat and Sun mats 4pm, £18, £12 concs, Sat mats £10, meal deal £25. Tel: 020 7378 1712. Tube: London Bridge

Murderer