All writers and would-be writers are bound to shudder in pained recognition at some point during these 70 minutes.
First-time playwright - but longtime novelist - Martin Wagner seems to speak with the bitter, almost desperate tang of lived experience, as he has a struggling author and his uncaring agent go head-to-head in a partially amusing clash of literary wills.
Alexander is the sort of agent you read about in the papers, constantly brokering mega-buck deals for those on his glittering client list. About to drop off the bottom of said list - and Wagner never adequately explains how he managed to get there in the first place - is the lugubrious Stephen, whose debut novel was published to very modest success. From the little he can recall of Stephen's second, Alexander has no hopes for it and no desire to represent its author any longer. In fact, he's late for a swanky lunch meeting right now.
Wagner should have got more mileage out of the largely threat-free hostage situation that follows, as Stephen forces Alexander to whip up a storm of buzz about the new work.
Stephen's gripe, too oft repeated, is the old one about the prevalence of the bottom line, and publicity machine, in the world of publishing. Wafty arguments about how unfair it is to judge others' work get him, Wagner and us nowhere.
Although Wagner shoehorns his actors into an all-too-predictable climax - which he then subverts with a very silly coda - they inhabit their roles nicely in Lesley Manning's efficient production.
Stephen Kennedy leaves us suitably unsure as to whether Stephen's nerdiness covers brilliance or banality, and William Beck gives Alexander the petulant air of a city wide boy, just with a slightly prettier dust-jacket.
A second draft might even hit that elusive jackpot.
Until 18 August (0870 060 6632).
The Agent
Trafalgar Studios 2 (formerly Whitehall Theatre)
Whitehall, SW1A 2DY
