Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl

Geoff Sobell and Charlotte Ford don't launch themselves from a tiny car. They live in a deserted warehouse office, coping with work-place romance and the gradual encroachment of nature. Bickering over hierarchy, struggling with daily routines that are habitual rather than necessary, the couple attempt to maintain normality in an increasingly apocalyptic world.

There are shades of Beckett's nihilism: Sobell's Jerry sleeps in a bin, tormented by stationery and his only companion, Rhoda. The unfulfilling consummation of their relationship is a frantic, despairing hump in a dumpster: his sudden retreat from intimacy is the punchline to his refusal to acknowledge that humanity's time is over.

Flesh and Blood skewers the absurdity of office ritual, before revealing the final vision of nature triumphant. Wandering through a few mime cliches - the inevitable annoying fly - the couple bicker and reconcile, both locked into their own delusions, unable to connect.

A clumsy mesh between the mundane and the revelatory distracts from the strong premise and well-observed awkwardness. The stuffed animals that emphasise nature's triumph are too static to conjure nature red in tooth and claw, while both Rhoda and Jerry are unsympathetic.

Lacking any explanation, the familiar end of the world scenario is haunting, even as the lineal narrative, culminating in Jerry's mauling by a bear, detracts from the impact. Slapstick comedy and nihilism skulk beneath the character's naive stupidity: it is a disorientating, intelligent and funny example of the clown as a symbol of human frailty, but lacks a necessary intensity.