THEATRE: CURTAIN CALLS

If you were one of the millions who didn't go to this year's Edinburgh Festival, don't worry. The general standard of theatre was depressingly low, and almost all the best stuff is touring. Notable among these is Riddance, Linda McLean's marvellously astringent new play for Paines Plough.

Vicky Featherstone's typically astute, beautifully controlled production coolly and carefully plays up every resonance of this chilly thriller in which past events linking three childhood lives are brought hurtling into the present.

There's a real emotional undertow to the material, which is all the more impressive when you realise that this is McLean's debut. She clearly knows how to whip us up by mining the quintessentially dramatic gap between what characters think they know and what the audience knows. Furthermore, rather than cheap twists, she turns her plot by allowing us to feel the emotional consequences of every step her characters take.

Lyric Studio, London W6 (0181-741 2311) to 9 Oct