“You’re going to spend $50m on a piece of pussy!” screams Charlie Fox at Bobby Gould, accosting Bobby over his motivations for ruining Charlie’s hopes, and some laugh. All are uneasy, a testament to the meticulous and highly effective restraint put into the presentation of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow by director Simon Wallis who, according to the programme notes, “having missed Trevor Nunn’s critically acclaimed production at the Old Vic in early 2008, thought he would guarantee a Speed-the-Plow ticket by directing it himself.

Luka Krsljanin brought an appropriately unbearable tautness to his portrayal of Charlie, a desperate Hollywood producer on the verge of his big break. Bringing the script of a “prison film”, or money-spinner, to his recently promoted “associate” Bobby (Fred Sawyer), Charlie’s antagonised extroversion almost buried moments of bitterness such as “a job I could have done ten times better than you”, and outbursts such as “look at me you stupid shit I’m talking to you!” However these were necessarily blurred as Charlie, a Marvel superhero in a straitjacket, positioned by Wallis as conductor between Bobby and the audience, propelled the action forwards from start to finish.

Act II sees Karen, Bobby’s temporary secretary, shaking off her simpering acquiescence to reveal a self-assured, animated campaigner, persuading Bobby to “float” a more meaningful film. Jess Kwong pulls of the character transition subtly and adeptly. The smile of simple admiration never leaves her face for good, instead flickering alternatively with an impassioned frown. Such is the dilemma between craftiness and integrity in Karen’s character that Wong never allows us to forget. She is by turns naïve, compassionate and experienced, innocently replying, “I’m sure it is” to Bobby’s assurance in Act I that “It’s an exciting world”, before animatedly exclaiming to Bobby later that evening, ““I know what it is to be bad. I’ve been bad. I know what it is to be lost. I’ve been lost!”

That Karen manipulated Bobby and Charlie is in no doubt when in Act III she admits to having slept with Bobby only because he agreed to fund her choice of film. This act throws our lack of sympathy for her into doubt, compounded by the rampant masculinity and misogyny that eventually triumphs. This is best emphasised by Fred Sawyer’s Bobby, whose instantaneous, near-monotonic delivery comes into its own in the third act to show Bobby as a shallow recycler of whatever identity will save him from failure, a trait which allows both Charlie and Karen to exploit him at different times. The hollowness never leaves Sawyer’s voice as he coldly invites Karen off stage with a “we’re rather busy now”.  Charlie and Bobby may not like each other, they may be insecure, pathetic, egotistic and obnoxious, but they are driven by wealth and career success, and in this brilliantly presented world, “God speed the Plow”. The men have won their pyrrhic victory. “Be a man?” Charlie asks Karen, derisiveness dripping through his metallic West Coast twang; “What right do you have?”