Within 60 seconds of this A Play, A Pie, and A Pint/Traverse co-produced comedy from Douglas Maxwell, the audience are in stitches.
This is after Jim (Scott Fletcher) makes a foul-mouthed faux pas in front of his newly-deceased boss's widow, Annabelle, played by Joanna Tope .
The laughter is a trend that continues throughout the rest of the production which looks at grief, and our use of so-called "bad" language. And at the end of the day you can't ask much more from a comedy than that.
Having taken a shine to Jim, prim and proper middle-class Annabelle strikes up an unlikely friendship with him, based on wanting to escape the stifling constraints of the small talk her world revolves around.
Instead she wants to tap into the deep reservoir of the sort of swear words her husband would have known before becoming a respectable businessman.
As premises go, it's unlikely, and Maxwell's comedy is little more than a diverting if hugely enjoyable entertainment, but he manages to inject it with lightly-managed nuggets of philosophical inquiry into semantics and our use of language.
It also doesn't do any harm at all that the piece, which is ably directed by Orla O'Loughlin, is played to perfection by Tope and Fletcher.
Were I to try and quote in print some of the lines that are on show here, chances are the asterisk button on my keyboard would seize up.
Suffice to say the play is full of very rude words indeed, and the comedy all the more rudely hilarious for it.
Just go and see it and you'll know what I mean.
Sponsored by Heineken
HHHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article