Metro preview, 31 October 2006

THEATRE
Salt'n'Sauce

Part of Theatre West's autumn new-writing season at The Alma Tavern Pub Theatre, Tim Massey's Salt'n'Sauce is the fourth in a series of five plays inspired by the phrase 'inside out'. Michael Frayn's 1982 play Noises Off, about a theatre company's failing attempts to tour a second-rate sex comedy called Nothing On, is cited by Massey as an influence. Like Frayn, Massey uses a play-within-a-play structure for the story of call-centre worker and wannabe writer John Lomas's bid to stage a production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Lomas's debut effort is By The Tale..., a modem adaptation of Chaucer's The Miller's Tale. Unfortunately, it's not very good, and only secures a venue because the playwright foots the bill on his credit card. After enlisting a hapless ageing director to oversee the production, he soon finds he's being beaten at the box office and in the press by a rival's story of his gap year travels around Europe. The wheels begin to fall off and, as the festival progresses, a dispute between the director-writer team and their cast develops.

Salt'n'Sauce is a gentle satire of the Edinburgh Festival's often fickle theatrical fashions, but with a farcical sense of humour that should appeal to a wider audience than festival regulars. It's also an exploration of the relationship between its tragicomic main characters and, for Massey, a self-parody of his own early writing career. JH

Tonight until Nov 11, The Alma Tavern Pub Theatre, Alma Vale Road, Clifton, Bristol, Tue to Sat 8.30pm, £6, £5 concs.
Tel: 0117946 7899. www.saltnsauce.com