To use a phrase I learned here recently, this play is like, soo meta. Stoppard's incredibly sharp script is full of all that deliciously crackling existential stuff as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern embark on a journey to discover which one they actually are.

In-keeping with this, I also never discovered which was which. A quick Facebook stalk reveals the brunette Jon Bailey to be Guildenstern, the redhead Robin Morton to be Rosencrantz. I think. In a very meta way, I would not have even bothered discerning had standards not varied wildly between the two. The great thing about Stoppard's play is that the dialogue is verbal table tennis - here, all the world's a game. It would be typically Stoppardian to say he plays with proverbs and parts of speech, and the level of rehearsal to maintain the tension has to be immense. The problem here is that it is not.

Morton is a great actor - his cadence is wonderfully varied and his comic timing perfect, but, as my companion said, 'If you're trying to remember whether the main character needed a prompt five or six times, something's gone wrong somewhere', however meta the play is. Bailey is by far the weaker of the pair, though did have the merit of having learned his lines. Hamlet himself also bore the constant wince of an awkward stage presence, but relief could be found in more minor roles: Adam Sullivan was amusingly suggestive and insidious as The Player, and, as one numerous players, I have no idea what the real name of Alfred was, but he was great. The sex scene, however, was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life.

I could not make up my mind as to whether the play's director had decided to create an atmosphere of glorious uncertainty in stagecraft - for example, when the pieces of paper hanging on the curtains fell off throughout the first scene - or whether, in a set consisting basically of nothing, they could not even manage to stick them on properly. Were the continual peeks behind the curtains, the glimpses of the dressing room, the awkward exits, an intentional way of conveying the rawness of theatre? Or was it just poorly disciplined?

Perhaps we should take the Player's maxim when he says, 'they won't see the broken seals, assuming you're in character'. This play is all about the world of the 'stark raving sane', where everything is questions rather than answers. There is lots of potential here, and it is unfortunate that, in a run of just two nights, it is unlikely that these players will ever realise it.