Review: Conduct Unbecoming; Theatre Royal, Plymouth and touring

Barry England's play Conduct Unbecoming offers a whiff of the cesspit that lay behind the regimental hogwash of the British Army in India in the late 1880s. Act 1 is rambling and tedious, as the idiocies of officers' mess protocol are explained in dotty detail to two new subalterns, one upstart, one upright. (Alice in Wonderland may boast its own curious logic, but on this showing the British Raj was the Goon Show crossed with Harry Grahame's Ruthless Rhymes.) Acts 2 and 3 grip, however, as mysteries are resolved in an illegal midnight court summoned to investigate a regimental widow's claim that she has been attacked by one of the subalterns.

By this point, the play has developed its own momentum. We accept the stilted dialogue, which could only come from stiff upper-lips, and we watch the sham lives in their trivial pursuits - which end with the keen recruit deciding to resign and the black sheep receiving a whitewash.

Conduct Unbecoming is an effective piece of drama, well plotted, well written (allowing for the limited vocabulary) and nicely paced by director John Adams. It would be easy for the piece to fall into hilarious melodrama but, with committed acting from a large cast, it just holds out.

Jason Riddington blazes effectively as the defending officer, while Andrew Lancel has the best lines as the backslider. Carol Drinkwater plays the abused widow, who continues in grace and favour by keeping her mouth shut: her outburst at the trial is delivered with the weary impatience of a well-seasoned matron at a boys' school. Gerald Harper plays the colonel with dry precision.

Conduct Unbecoming is being given an Arts Council tour under the umbrella of the Plymouth-based Armada Productions. It's a large play, with a cast of 20, and the question arises whether they and the subsidy could have been better employed: is it wiser to splash out on a single worthy piece like this, or to instigate several tours of smaller, more interesting productions? I can't help thinking that the cash could have been better used.

n Theatre Royal, Norwich to Sat (booking: 01603 630000); then Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne 25-30 March (01323 412000); King's Theatre, Edinburgh 8-13 April (0131-220 4349)

ALLEN SADDLER