There are few things more pervasive in this gadget-obsessed society than the ringing of a mobile telephone.

The mere possibility of some life-changing call is so great, it seems, that staying in touch at all times is crucial. Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer Sarah Ruhl makes this abundantly clear in her increasingly absurd study of just how desperate making a connection can be.

It starts inconsequentially enough, with a man and a woman sat at separate tables in a quiet little diner. If the possibility of flirtation is there then no-one’s saying much about it. Only when the man’s phone rings in earnest is the woman, Jean, prompted into an action that steers her on a picaresque adventure involving grieving mothers, wronged mistresses and loving brothers, not to mention the proposed sale of a kidney in a South African airport.

Ruhl’s play may only have been written in 2006, but so far has technology come in terms of smartphones, social networking and all the other new-fangled jiggery-pokery that keeps us hanging 24/7 that Euhl’s play – a UK premiere – already looks dated. It might have helped in director Stasi Schaeffer’s playful if uneven production if a clearly game cast, led by Susan Worsfold as innocent abroad Jean, kept to the script’s clear American rhythms rather than their own voices.

Even so, as Jean lives vicariously through others, all the while making amends for the life she’s accidentally acquired, there’s still great fun to be had with Ruhl’s take on a world where switching off and pulling the plug on the latest gadget is for some a terrifying prospect.

HHH