PULLIN' THE WOOL

Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

"You English think you're so funny," said the fictitious Welshman sitting next to me. "You see that two South Wales theatres are producing a play called 'Pullin' the Wool', and you immediately assume that it's going to be about sheep." But Pullin' the Wool is no rollicking adventure of hilarious ovine mishaps. The wool in question is being pulled vigorously over the eyes of potential house buyers. A play riddled with duplicity and rising damp, this joint production between the Sherman Theatre and Swansea Grand Theatre is a convoluted concoction of snappy stereotypes all looking out for Number One in the legalised anarchy of the housing market. It is also very funny.

Soft suburbanites Martyn and Gail are selling their house to working class toughs Ray and Sheila, who in turn plan to sell their house to ex-con Dave and his girlfriend Di. At the same time - as is the nature of the house-buying chain - Martyn and Gail have exchanged contracts to buy the house of Audrey Roberts-alike Denise and her henpecked husband Barrie. When the next link in the chain collapses, Denise and Barrie face having to move into rented accommodation, unless they can persuade Martyn and Gail to pull out of the contract. On the evening that Ray and Sheila come round to try and con Martyn into knocking £ 10,000 off the asking price with the aid of a dodgy survey, Denise and Barrie decide to do everything in their power to put Ray and Sheila off buying - starting with dismantling the boiler.

Author Frank Vickery has a lot of fun playing with time. The story covers two different evenings, with the two time lines switching to and fro, and often running in parallel. With its use of non-linear time and a split set which shows two living rooms simultaneously, Pullin' the Wool is unavoidably reminiscent of Ayckbourn, albeit with the emphasis on crudity rather than crudités. In addition to the dazzling ingenuity displayed in this skein of time, place and character, Vickery surpasses most other comic writers in the sophistication of the interweave between gags and plot. Whilst many playwrights will deploy a rollercoaster plot interspersed with big laugh points, the joy of Vickery's writing is that it is precisely those big laughs which expand like ripples to move the story on.

The cast amaze with their quick-change ability as they hurtle from one timeline to the other, vanishing on one side of the stage only to reappear virtually instantaneously on the other on a different day in a different outfit. In doubling the parts of Denise - Julie Waters at her most 'refined' - and Di, the ash-blonde jailbird's moll, Helen Griffin impresses with both her versatility and her total immersion in two very contrasting alternating parts.

With bands like the Manic Street Preachers and Catatonia dominating the charts - and the soundtrack of this production - South Wales appears to be enjoying the sort of cultural boom which has boosted areas like Scotland and Manchester in recent years. Pullin' the Wool demonstrates that the region has the theatrical writing and acting talent to match.

TOBY O'CONNOR MORSE

Runs until 17 October. Box office: (01222) 230451