Pebbles on the Beach

Every day when Leo gets up, he says to himself that he is going to do something new, he's going to make the path of his life go somewhere else. And today, as he sits on Brighton beach pilling up the pebbles, might just be that day. It certainly isn't like any day he has had before, as a succession of those whose actions shaped his life pass by.

Michael Armstrong brings a cockiness to the roll. There is a feeling something like a modern day Quadrophenia as the status of the various visitors becomes clear. Leo can see for miles and miles and miles and miles – but he can't actually see what is right under his nose.

Excellent and simple design from Gabriela Restelli ensures that this is very much on the beach. Pebbles strew the edge of the stage while a white drape backcloth makes a virtue of the physical space of the theatre, which has no wings, so that the characters appear to Leo as if from out of a mist.

There's Susannah (Jenny Rowe), the girlfriend who is as unable to commit to anyone or anything as he is. Phil (Ian Draper), the man who brought Leo up as if he were his natural father, and who Leo ran away from on the discovery that he wasn't. Maggie (Annabel Cleare) a young, pregnant woman who, it turns out, is Leo's birth mother.

Strongly naturalistic performances all round keep the pace of the piece chuntering along nicely. Director Timothy Hughes does not allow it to pick up on the more melodramatic elements of Joanna Pinto's overly episodic script, as the truth of Leo's birth – when Maggie was 13 – and Phil's disappointment at his retreat, are brought out.

The difficulty is that Pinto is trying to cover too much ground and ends up failing to cover any of it adequately. Her central metaphor of pebbles for friendships is nicely worked up. But the logic of the limbo that this beach represents does not sustain coherently and, despite a short running time, the production begins to drag well before its end.