Tame approach to animal urges

Jane has just packed her rampaging, recalcitrant kids off to school when her husband comes home from a business trip with a marriage-shaking confession. Then guests arrive for a weekend visit.

Amelia Bullmore's first play does what it sets out to do - entertain us.

But while it's about the tussle between monogamy and animal urges, Mammals plays things tame and safe. There's no doubt that Bullmore can do dialogue and she's perceptive about the way that kids, played here by obstreperous grown-ups, run families as much as parents.

Still, there's a willed quirkiness and a processed quality to the writing that makes it feel disposable. The characters remain skin deep. We've heard the children's cute, sticky questions about mortality and sex before and it's telling that when an accident happens to one of them, we can't work up much of a sweat about it.

In Anna Mackmin's production, Niamh Cusack, an enormously sympathetic actor, is on good form as the frazzled mum. But this is one of those one-size-fits-all shows that gets billed as being 'for anyone who's in, has been, or ever will be in a family'.

Mammals may attempt to highlight the messiness of domestic and romantic life but it's really just a slick sex comedy with a theme or two tacked on.

Until May 7, Bush Theatre, Shepherd's Bush Green W12, Mon to Sat 8pm, £13.50, £9 concs. Tel: 020 7610 4224. Tube: Shepherd's Bush/Goldhawk Road

Mammals