SIGN OF THE TIMES Duchess Theatre

Twenty years ago Tim Firth wrote a one-act play about a middle-aged man who had ambitions to write spy stories but didn’t have the talent; and knew it. His job was installing signs on buildings. He tried to befriend a teenager on work experience who had a talent for drawing. Firth has added a second act which is set three years later when their roles are reversed. The youngster is now a trainee assistant manager. The older man is out of work and applies to him for a job. There is even less to this act than there is to the first and Matthew Kelly and Gerard Kearns are visibly at a loss what to do with it.