Apartment 40C (London Theatre Workshop)

Apartment 40C takes a snapshot of the significant moments through a relationship from the idealistic couple, Katie and Eddie, brought together by a clerical error, through their marriage, to their later life, as they come to terms with their past to reach understanding, if not forgiveness, for their mistakes.

Alex Crossley is a cutely idealistic Katie, in New York for the first time and excited at the prospects before her. Alex James Ellison's Eddie is a bit of a bad-boy law student, determined to knuckle down and pass his exams.

As the middle couple, Lizzie Wofford (Kate) and Drew Weston (Ed) give a good account of a couple in crisis, even as Kate doesn't seem to realise that there's anything to worry about in their relationship. She's the stereotype of the homemaker, cooking meals, keeping house, and not in the least suspicious that her husband works very late every night. She smiles, bins the dinner she's cooked and orders Chinese when he finally gets home.

Nova Skipp and Peter Gerald as the mature Kathryn and Edward are solid, if sometimes going too far towards the melodramatic.

The major flaw of Apartment 40c is that there's a strong sense of déjà vu. We've seen these characters so many times before: Katie/Kate/Kathryn, the idealist starting out who gives up her dreams to allow her husband to pursue his career, and then flourishes later in life, Eddie/Ed/Edward, the lawyer bored with his stay-at-home wife, having an affair with his secretary.

It's all so gloomily predictable with the few humorous moments failing to do much to inject freshness or lighten the inevitable progress towards break-up and recrimination

There's little dialogue, with the story told primarily through the largely unmemorable, but well-performed, songs (music by Tom Lees, lyrics by Ray Rackham). The band of piano (Tom Lees), violin (Errin McGrath) and cello (Florian Belbeach) provide glorious accompaniment, with the predominance of the cello particularly effective in setting the melancholy tone of the piece. The brick-walled apartment set is a clever and suitably New York style performance space.

Overall though, Apartment 40c disappoints. It's a shame, as the talented cast and band do a great job, but need material more original than this.

Apartment 40C runs at London Theatre Workshop until 20 December