'Sally' fails to perform

In these sexually sophisticated times it is no surprise that the sight and sound of a woman simulating orgasm in a Manhattan diner fails to give the kiss of theatrical life to this stage adaptation of the film When Harry Met Sally. Indeed, the orgasmic incident serves to show that this is a production lacking not only a simulated climax but a real one as well.

At its premiere in 1989 some people considered When Harry Met Sally a useful comic take on the elementary idea that men and women are different: American TV star Luke Perry plays an attorney who wants sex without complications, while mildly neurotic Sally looks for sexual satisfaction only within a secure relationship. How, in a formulaic, romantic comedy like this, will their opposing demands be sentimentally reconciled? Can they achieve the happy ending of true, mutual love?

It takes two mildly entertaining theatrical hours and 13 years. During this time Harry and Sally, who have about half an interesting personality between them, conventionally flirt, reject each other, find alternative lovers, argue, become platonic friends and indulge in one bout of comfort-sex before passion breaks out like a rash.

There are flashes of genuine comedy and emotion at a wedding. But once Harry admits he loves Sally for her neurotic oddness, she instantly melts into the conditional love which, of course, she has secretly nurtured all the time. This pattern of events sounds as if it is devised by a chauvinist male. Yet Nora Ephron wrote the film script and the female radio playwright Marcy Kahan adapted it for the stage.

Pared down to bare essentials - and this is one of those rare productions with imported American stars where no one actually strips naked - When Harry Met Sally consists of sex-war skirmishes between two uninteresting people. As if aware how ill-suited the play's intimate dialogues are to the large Haymarket theatre, designer Ultz compresses the action within a white, rectangular-shaped playing area, with horizontal panels that disclose and cut off each plodding scene. Interpolated video confessions of happy old couples who explain how they met decades ago intrude an irrelevant, winsome element.

Loveday Ingram's production skims superficially across the play's surface. Cute, skinny Luke Perry has a deft comic touch and makes Harry a lighthearted pleasure-seeker for whom women are as inscrutable as encrypted messages. Sally, whose need to organise and control makes her a far more interesting character, is valuably played by Alyson Hannigan with hints of stress and strain. But the comedy might better hit home with more passionate acting.

Booking to 29 May. Information: 020 7930 8800.

When Harry Met Sally