Standoffish

Did you ever find yourself thinking the young people of Ireland would be better off entirely if they were married by arrangement at the age of consent? Anything to cut short those years - those decades of industrial scale introspection, lunacy and lust. You haven't? Well, you obviously haven't been to Pan Pan Theatre Company's Standoffish, directed by Gavin Quinn and presented as part of the Contemporary Irish Theatre season at the Galway Arts Festival.

Aedin Cosgrove's set has as its centrepiece a broom sporting a chunky ethnic knit, and the three actors - Kevin Hely, James Hosty and Emma McIvor - are the human version. We are - we think - in the territory of Barrabas's deliberately Irish clowning, particularly as the triangle of desire is prurient and repressed. There a few good sequences, such as that which sees the three rolling around the floor together, the two men both trying to bite the woman's thigh as often as possible.

However, clowning is deadly serious, and a clown's exploration of the foolishness of love would also convey its seriousness and its sadness. Standoffish had none of this edge; it seemed like a self-indulgent improvisation session which had accidentally ended up on stage. The audience seemed to quickly disengage. Approached with the mike and asked was she enjoying the show, one audience member bravely said: "No."

Encouraging the audience participation may have been a bad idea. When told that Emma McIvor was "famous in Ireland" because she'd been on Fair City, one man groaned: "Hasn't everyone!"