The Box of Tricks (24:7 Festival, Manchester)

A joint writing credit here – Ric Brady and Stephen M Hornby – points to the depth and complexity of a story they have managed to, just, shoehorn, into the one hour max allowed for the 24:7 Festival of new writing. The piece clearly has ambitions, and the potential, to become a full evening’s entertainment.

Mike (Sam Thompson) has returned from New Zealand, very reluctantly, to attend the funeral of his younger brother Mark (Sam Moran). Quite why Mike is so angry with a brother once so-loved, is the unfolding drama.

Kate Lavelle is Phillipa, Marks grieving fiancée, Richard Sails and Judy Holt, the uncle and aunt who cared for the brothers in the wake of their parents’ break up.

Drugs, a love far deeper, more practical and consistent than it at first seems, is eventually revealed and the pieces finally fall into place. Just a little too neatly perhaps.

Performances, particularly from Sails, Holt and Lavelle are very convincing. The brothers have to cope with going back to childhood, never a good ask for grown men, and it inevitably rubs off on their adult selves.

But, overall, the drama grips, you want to know what happens next and, even what happens after the final blackout.