Top of the comedy bill

At its best, Will Adamsdale's new piece is funny, inventive and often rather beautiful. Adamsdale came to prominence last year when he won Edinburgh Fringe's Perrier prize for comedy with his show Jackson's Way. In it he played a lifestyle guru who preached enlightenment through pointless activity.

Here he's developing the theme. The Receipt tells the story of Alan Wiley, a disillusioned urbanite who finds purpose through tracing the history of the titular piece of litter.

Adamsdale paces out Wiley's journey on a bare stage, while narrating in the separate guise of a historian from the future. He describes a familiar city where bureaucracy is maddening and words have become meaningless.

Credit cards are Goldfish. Train tickets are Oysters. Paper is everywhere, but especially in places run by machines that are meant to reduce the use of paper.

From a corner, Chris Branch provides support both as actor and sound man. Sat behind his synthesiser, he convinces us that hearing is the loneliest of the senses, conjuring a metropolitan world of machine noise and overheard parties, of neighbours audible through paper walls and phone calls on hold.

It sounds bleak, but the pair's unforgiving eye for the nonsense of modern living is tempered by an awareness of its simpler pleasures, as when a postman revels in the beauty of a Page Three girl. The piece plays all its cards in the first half-hour, though, and only peaks again at its poignant close.

Until 4 December. Information: 020 7223 2223.

The Receipt