Politics savaged with slapstick

The ghost of Samuel Beckett looms large over these two men in a turffilled suitcase, whose angry protest against the emptiness of the ceasefire process has evolved into a devastating act of clowning. Dressed in suits with the sobriety of Stormont-based politicians, they tread a giddy verbal path through the absurdities and anomalies of living with an endless circle of rage and centuries-old violence.

Jon Hough and David Woods became artistsinresidence at the Playhouse in Derry in 1994, and quickly found that being outsiders did not make them immune to the local tensions. In the programme, they quip drily: "Say Nothing started as an idea in a notebook called Riot - a street theatre piece - with a bouncy orange that would roll around the streets of Derry, bouncing off walls with the whine: 'This is the Queen's highway.' We were advised a shooting incident was likely."

Their far more subtle drama presents the two standing in a small square of grass in a suitcase, leaping with lightning speed between seemingly trivial conversations that cast a critical light on the ingrained prejudices and cultivated political blindness in Northern Ireland. Kevin is an Englishman cracking up as he tries to orchestrate reconciliation meetings for an EU-funded project. He is also baffled by the way that individuals such as his tight-lipped Donegal landlady eschew important political issues for lowminded trivial prejudice.

As the two performers leap with stream-ofconsciousness fluidity between characters, it is not always easy to keep up, yet the sense of slow-burning anger and desperation flares up powerfully through the relentlessly circular humour. This is searing slapstick at its most elliptical, delivered by actors with stylistic bravery and eloquently brutal despair.

Until 4 January. Box office: 020 7638 8891.

Say Nothing