If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet **** TNT

Friday 06 November 2009 13:29 GMT

Nick Payne’s idiosyncratic play has a delightfully quirky set to match – designer Lucy Osborne has ripped out the padded seating, and painted blue virtually everything in sight, apart from the cushions and odd assortment of chairs which have replaced it. The acting space cleverly serves as a café, a rocky shore, various rooms in a home and a host of other locations as a relationship develops between a stroppy overweight 15-year-old and her feckless uncle, Terry.

Bullied by her classmates and with parents who are too busy with their own pursuits to pay her much attention, Anna’s not a happy bunny. But with time on his hands and a failed love affair of his own to get over, Terry not only brings her out of her shell but ends up the unwilling object of her affections.

Preoccupied with writing his book, Anna’s ecologically obsessed father (Michael Begley’s eccentric but rather sad academic) is blind to the troubles at home. And though her mother (Pandora Cooke), who teaches at her daughter’s school, is more down to earth, she too, has failed to register the depth of Anna’s loneliness as the family unit begins to fall apart.

Ailish O’Connor is touchingly vulnerable and obstinately persistent as the introverted teenager, but it’s Rafe Spall who steals the acting honours. His Terry is an adult who’s never grown up - infuriatingly irresponsible, disarmingly watchable and an unpredictable delight in Josie Rourke’s spot-on production of this poignantly compassionate new comedy.

Bush Theatre, Shepherd's Bush Green, W12 8QD. TUBE: Shepherd's Bush. (020 8743 5050). Until Nov 21. £20, Saturday matinees £13