Working Legs, Muirfield Centre, Cumbernauld

THE world premiere of a new play by Alasdair Gray - and those without a disability in the audience are in a distinct minority. Which is as it should be. Working Legs posits a society where the ability to perambulate on two pins is the abnormality, diagnosed as hyperactivity or even hypermania.

Gray presents us with a parallel universe populated by louche, slightly decadent chair-users and anxious upright folk negotiating very low doors. In this Birds of Paradise production, the employment of a non-professional cast for many of whom life in a wheelchair is an everyday reality only presses home the paradoxes, but the scale and scope of the script make its performance a tall order.

The presentation - on a clever, clinical, and beautifully lit set - will surely sharpen, but there are already strong performances from John Hollywood

as the disadvantaged Able McMann, Kevin Howell in a number of roles, including the megalomaniacal Prime Minister, Humpty Dipsy, and Susan McGinlay as, variously, angry Mrs McCrae, cynical Meg, and idealistic Monica Shy.

The tone of black irony, however, makes the moments of high drama difficult to achieve, and one wonders whether the directorial team (Tina McGeever and Andrew Dawson) has treated Gray's text with rather too much respect. In the second act, his targets broaden to take in a critique of modern management, an explanation of contemporary criminality, and the unscrupulousness of the tabloid press. Those concerns are ill-focused on the central premise of the play, leaving it nowhere to go but the rather vapid conclusion.

None the less, there is much to enjoy and plenty food for thought here. You will never have considered so carefully stretching your legs at the interval.

n Touring across Scotland to the end of June.

Picture: KEVIN LOW