They Make These Noises

At first sight, They Make These Noises seems inconsequential. A two-hander exploring romance in an unknown English city, it suffers from a slight plot and a severely underwritten female part. But, like Brian Ferguson's garrulous lead, Kelman seduces with florid language and awkward humour.

The minimal plot - boy meets girl, boy and girl sleep together, boy is ejected from lodgings - gives Kelman enough space to concentrate on the confusions of new found intimacy. Insulated from the wider world by only a thin wall and the dubious security of their feelings, the two characters are uncertain of themselves and each other, their conversations constantly testing boundaries. Kelman avoids clichés of competition or domination: Ferguson is sincere, nervous and expansive, and he catches the frailty of macho extravagance. Danielle Stewart has far less to do as the woman: she initiates sex out of some mysterious impulse, and has very little character, beyond her refrain of "Excuse Me?" Again like his lead, Kelman seems bemused about the feminine, and the play would have been as effective as a monologue.

Nevertheless, Kelman makes much of the social awkwardness, delivering bawdy laughs and moving the action along to a sharp denouement. David MacKay's direction is crisp and the recreation of Ferguson's bedsit is appropriately depressing. A very different piece from the recent Arches' company production of Herbal Remedies, it lacks that work's universality but has a more personal tone: despite the rough accents and occasional naughty word, They Make These Noises is tender and optimistic.