Michael Wynne arrived on the playwriting scene in the 1990s showing great, warm comic promise, but notwithstanding an Olivier award for The Priory in 2010 has not always managed to sustain that momentum. His latest piece saunters along with a spring in its step but generally purveys smiles rather than major laughs.
    
The setting of a commercial holiday provides a handy pretext for throwing together a diverse bunch of characters. Here, down-on-their-luck landscapers Alan and Justine arrive with their two young children on one of those campsites where the pre-pitched, furnished “tents” are in effect holiday cabins with canvas walls. Their neighbours on one side are officious bourgeoise Amanda and her lothario husband Alistair; on the other, bossy-boots teacher Bridget and her still-smitten ex-husband Rory. Bronwyn, who runs the somewhat scanty “traditional farm” on which the campsite is situated, is not best suited to either farming or camp management, still less diplomacy.
    
This set-up is potentially fecund, but all a bit too pat; the subsequent proceedings likewise. Bridget treats the families’ kids (offstage) as a school class, Rory sighs despairingly for her in secret; Amanda gives Bronwyn screeds of demands that each tent be equipped like a Hampstead villa, while Alistair hits on Justine; she and Alan are hiding the truth of their own situation. The second half consists largely of a final-night dinner party which, we can see from the start, will develop into that dramatic standard, the drunken truth-telling session. Only it doesn’t, at least not sufficiently: too little drunkenness, too little awkward candour. Wynne gets the others’ revelations out of the way with, at best, efficiency so that he can zero in on the viewpoint couple, who then also fail to ignite. It all feels rather Ayckbournian, but even at his blandest that master always shows some teeth.
    
Angus Jackson’s production does little to disguise the play’s shortcomings. Lucy Montgomery’s Justine is too stilted to welcome us under her skin; the vocal squeaks of Sarah Hadland’s Bridget alienate us from the start rather than letting us decide to repudiate her. Lisa Palfrey’s Bronwyn alone hits the second-half target with a satisfying thunk. The whole play feels at least two drafts away from the required mix of humour and uneasiness: as a portrayal of material and personal discomfort it is simply too comfy.

Written for the Financial Times.