It is hard to believe that Donal O'Kelly, who told with such dramatic invention and clarity the story of the Catalpa, could also have been the author of this entirely inconsequential 90-minute piece of purple poetic-sounding prose.

It is inconsequential because nothing that happens or is said in it has any consequence in any subsequent word or action. The setting is in mad Paddo's self-designed gallarus, with a "good" door at its western end and a "bad" door at its eastern end. The time is just at the end of the civil war in the 20s and Duv Shyne, an IRA man, delivers Jock McPeak, a Glaswegian participant in the war, to the gallarus, where he may hide until a boat might arrive to take him home to safety.

He is visited by Mrs Noreen O'Connell, a local schoolteacher, and for no reason that is rationally or emotionally signalled in the script, they make love. Her husband Mo visits to seek her out and goes off again thinking that the figure hidden in the bedclothes is Paddo. Duv returns to find out if Jock was the man who killed Michael Collins and Paddo returns from his nocturnal ramblings to go to bed. Nothing happens. And that's about it.

Lalor Roddy is Paddo, Paschal Friel is Jock, Denis Conway is Duv, Karen Ardiff is Noreen and Steve Blount is Mo. None of them gets a chance to create a real characterisation from the overwrought script and Jason Byrne's direction provides no opportunities to further explore either characterisation or narrative.

As a piece of theatre, the evening is null and void because, apart from the inconsequential and anachronistic words, there is nothing with which the audience can actively or rewardingly engage.

Continues at the Peacock until September 18th. To book, phone: 01-8787222.