Tea with the BNP

When Melanie meets Railton at the local fair, being back home after an aborted round-the-world trip suddenly doesn't seem quite so bleak. But although he's a lovely chap, and clearly sweet on Melanie, a tricky little problem soon emerges: Railton is a member of the BNP.

His reasons are clear enough: he wants to preserve the town's Anglo-Saxon heritage and is trying to fulfil the dream of his beloved dead dad George (Jonathan Jaynes) by organising a St George's Day fair. Melanie, however, is involved in a new community initiative, arranging a multicultural fair on the anniversary of the local race riots, and the two are soon on a collision course.

Playwright Joy Wilkinson goes for every trick in the book to make Railton sympathetic: he adores children; he adores Melanie; all he really wants is a home and a family to call his own. His anger is easy to understand too: the things he believes in, and the system that used to exist to help him, are both being subsumed by the needs of the new immigrant communities.

But, despite some snappy dialogue, a beautiful performance from Anthony Shuster as Railton and Helen Eastman's imaginative, poetic, constantly watchable production, Wilkinson's proposition is ultimately too benign. Melanie is a mouthpiece for liberal soundbites, nothing more.

The real issue here is surely not that Railton feels a bit alienated. It's the far more explosive issue of how social and racial prejudice can often be bound up with the willingness of some members of the working class to cast themselves as socially disenfranchised victims.

Until Jun 17, Trafalgar Studio 2, Whitehall SW1, Tue to Sun 7.45pm, Wed and Sat mats 3pm, £20, £15 concs. Tel: 0870 060 6632. Tube: Charing Cross

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