Love and Marriage - Lighthouse, Poole

THE rather sparse audience at Lighthouse had a struggle responding to Donald Churchill's play as it strays from comedy to farce with odd bits of homespun philosophy.

Two approaches to marriage are under the spotlight. Bill and Maggie don't reveal their peccadilloes whereas Tony and Ruth pride themselves on their apparent honesty.

Leslie Grantham makes the most of his character and gets some laughs with some good one-liners. His facial expressions in particular are worth watching with the confusion around him building as home truths are revealed. Stephen Boxer conveys Tony's self-obsessed intellectual approach to marriage but shouts his lines inappropriately.

Liz Izen tends to hold it all together as the central female character who shifts attitudes alarmingly. The fourth character is on stage very briefly indeed and spends this time being shaken upside down in a semi-comatose state.

If ultimately this production fails to work well, it is largely due to the play itself having little substance.