Elling

Review: This endearing story of two psychiatric patients struggling to cope with the real world shows that good drama doesn't require epic clashes between titans: the journey from rock bottom to a second-floor apartment can also be a triumph.

The plot of Elling, adapted by Simon Bent from the Norwegian film, is as simple as Survivor and plausible as spilt milk: the oddball pair are transferred from hospital to a flat in Oslo where they may stay at State expense, provided their social worker Frank (Glenn Hazeldine) judges them to be coping with non-institutional life. They are at once the utterly unique characters of Norwegian novelist Ingvar Ambjørnsen as well as being archetypes equatable to Laurel and Hardy, Oscar and Felix, and Vladimir and Estragon.

Darren Gilshenan, whose flamboyant 2003 performance as The Servant of Two Masters proved to the nation that he is one of our finest physical comic actors, brings the same intensity and precision to the very constrained lead role of the pernickety, introverted Elling ("Mother did all the shopping; I was in charge of ideology.") That he avoids monopolising attention is a credit to him and the skill of his colleague Lachy Hulme, the other actors and director Pamela Rabe. The delightful product of all this gently deployed talent, like the charming matchstick model house by set designer Michael Scott-Mitchell, is to show us that an average domestic life, messy and troublesome and painstakingly constructed out of fragile, less-than-perfect pieces, is nonetheless an achievement to rejoice. Jason Catlett