Nigel Williams (I)

Anyone who has ever worked in a large organisation knows the routine. It's time for the annual appraisal: dig out every scrap of evidence of praise and hope for a positive performance review. But the signs are grim if you're called to the human resources department for "a little chat" ahead of your appraisal. This two-hander by The Wimbledon Poisoner author Nigel Williams sees a middle-aged, middle-management waste-of-space paddling in potential disaster. Jonathan Pryce is Peter, the tired-of-life-and-exhausted-by-work employee. Unfortunately for him, the telephone conversation in which he berates a supplier with every offensive turn of phrase imaginable has been recorded by his company "for training purposes". Nicholas Le Prevost plays his equally run-down halfcomatose HR manager, Sam, who must try and work out "a way forward" as personnel people say. The performances are first-class, but I could not help being reminded of Reginald Perrin's chats with his depressed HR chief.

New comedy by Nigel Williams, starring Jonathan Pryce and Nicholas Le Prevost, about an idle employee and his equally useless Human Resources officer. When they realise they're both up for the chop they embark on adventures which will occupy this space for the next six weeks. With a subject like HR, bane of the politically incorrect, and a cast like this, you can't really go wrong. Unless the script is clogged, self-conscious and leaves no room for the listener to enter the intense verbosity of the scene. As, alas, is the case today.