Ray Brown’s odd curio of a play brings together an ageing old grouch and an anxious thirty-something socialist to explore loneliness and a clash of ideals. It aims for comedy, with dialogue that’s flutey and fruity by turns, remaining engaging throughout.

Geoffrey Wilkinson plays the older man, Joe Sweeting, with admirable control, although he occasionally seems too conscious of the audience. Sweeting is a dyed in the wool racist and homophobe who refers to himself in the third person. He’s trying to sell his flat and Gary Roebuck (Jamie Smelt) is his first potential buyer.

What the play lacks in structure, it makes up for with some articulate speeches about anarchism and left-wing politics, Smelt particularly convincing as the shy Marxist. Set in 1986, the miners’ strike is a recent memory and the housing market is about to become the financial engine of Thatcher’s brave new Britain.

The needless presence of a rubber sex doll companion for Joe mars what is a carefully wrought piece of writing. It jars with the overall tone of gentle, discursive exchanges and conflicting beliefs which make the play definitely worth a look.