This is a Welsh play, so why is that lad sporting a fez? And do Welsh policewomen really wear microskirts? Then realisation strikes: 21st-century Wales’ principal export is Doctor Who, and Liam and Jen have just returned from a fan convention. In Gary Owen’s play, Liam’s Whovian geekdom is only the first of many factors distinguishing him his biological father Rick, whom he never knew until his mother died six months earlier leaving him nowhere else to live. Liam’s accent is Lancashire whereas Rick’s is broad valley Welsh; David Moorst gives the son a camp cynicism whereas the father is by nature a rollicker; and, of course, Rick is an alcoholic whose nickname is Violence, shortened by his loving partner Suze to “Vile”.

Hamish Pirie’s production takes place in a circular living-room walled off to thigh-height. It could be intended to suggest the TARDIS control room (an octagonal overhead lighting rig is occasionally brought into play), or more likely it could suggest a fighting pit, as seen in this space a few years ago with Mike Bartlett’s Cock. Yet there is no sustained fighting, only a couple of brief outbursts. Jason Hughes adroitly keeps Rick mostly affable, albeit that kind of affability that’s a little bit too invasive and unrelenting, until something gets his dander up. Owen’s writing is equally deft at mixing comedy and a persistent undertow of menace.

In the final phase this blend first resolves itself, then grows horrifyingly stark, and is ultimately overworked. After an evening of Liam making ineffectual plays for Jen (Morfydd Clark), they finally spend a night together, after which the issue of sexual consent rears its head in classic grey-area mode (which Owen rightly makes clear isn’t grey at all). This episode and its even more sinister aftermath seem to suggest that there can be all the differences in the world between individuals, but a prick is a prick is a prick. However, once the issue of heredity has been raised, the suggestion cannot be avoided that such behaviour is in Liam’s blood. I hope this is unintentional on Owen’s part, because after two hours of deceptive thoughtfulness such a conclusion would be crassly unthinking altogether.
  
Written for the Financial Times.