LAM

Northcott Theatre, Exeter

The depiction of a small community slipping loose from its moral moorings in times of war is not a new one, be it the sinister self-righteousness of Max Frish's Andorra or Michael Palin's pig pandemonium in A Private Function. Christopher William Hill's new play sets this moral dilapidation against the backdrop of the tiny Cornish village of St. Melor in the back-against-the-wall days of 1941. The Mutton brothers are struggling to keep their butcher's shop running in the face of ever-tighter rationing. Eldest brother Hamilton (Chris MacDonnell) is filled with a blend of violence and angry religiosity: a man who meets every resistance to his immutable will with a quote from Isaiah or a swift clip round the ear. Lam (Gary Whitaker) is the simpleton, twenty-one going on eight, who dreams of becoming a cowboy and wears a sheriff's star to prove it. Chubby middle brother Plum (Ian Sanders) is the piggy in the middle, trying to keep the peace.

And piggies are what this play is all about. Despite the prevalence of black marketing, with everyone from the pastor to the Women's Institute in on the act, the Mutton brothers have so far refused to break the law. But when overwhelming temptation steps into Hamilton's path, Lam's beloved pig Nell is for the pork chop. Once he has deviated from the path of righteousness, Hamilton's life descends into lawless chaos when the local constable discovers the evidence of the illegal slaughtering. Having been blooded with Nell, Lam has to see his friend the PC butchered with a sticking knife. And then there's the question of what to do with the body …

In his combination of bleak actions with near-slapstick, Hill has been supping from the cup of fellow Cornish playwright Nick Darke. Yet Lam is neither black enough nor comic enough to fully succeed as a black comedy. One feels that there is a good play struggling to get out, but it is hard to say whether the fault lies in the production or the script. The pacing is as uneven as the cobbled lanes of St. Melor, and there is very little growth within the characters themselves. Despite having participated in the slaughter of both his best friends - porcine and human - Lam at the end of the play is still the same naïve innocent who thinks that Truro will be like Kansas City. Hamilton rants from his first moment on stage to his last, and it is only Plum - the quiet one - who manages to delve into some new-found font of strength to bring the matter to a close.

Nevertheless, the cast work hard to make the characters genuine, with Gary Whitaker's Lam a picture of engaging simplicity, and Chris MacDonnell's Hamilton a tower of De Niro-esque rage, dominating the stage with his every gesture. Yet in the end, Lam is less a laugh-and-flinch black comedy, and more like a Grand Guignol episode of Last of the Summer Wine.

TOBY O'CONNOR MORSE