The Secret Wives of Andy Williams

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The sisters of St Agatha's convent are a curious lot: a close-knit bunch, presiding over some strange orphan girls, while secretly pining for the eponymous American talk show host and singer. Their world is rocked however, with the arrival of sister Caitlin – a nun with existential doubts and a secret boyfriend in tow.

Funded by Arts Council England and Escalator to Edinburgh, theatre company Old Trunk have had a promising first two years. But, unfortunately, almost everything in The Secret Wives of Andy Williams is a little flat. On this display, writer Sadie Hasler has something of a tin ear for comedy, which does more than a little harm to a production largely playing for laughs.

Worse, though, is the presence of a scrum of two-dimensional characters too numerous to have any room to breathe or develop over the course of the allotted sixty minutes. In particular, the relationship between newcomer Caitlin and her secret beau just doesn't feel believable and there is simply no chemistry between actors Charlie Platt and Edward Mitchell to justify its front-and-centre positioning in the show. The only moment of any poignancy comes as the convent's leader, sister Mabel Matthews (played ably by Hasler), is forced into revealing her secret past as a victim of circumstance in wartime France and the impact this has on one of the more roguish orphans in the nuns' care. One can't help but wonder what could have been if it was this relationship that formed the core of this otherwise uncompelling and cluttered play.