Jill Freud & Company, at Southwold, are in top form for the world premiere of Ian Masters's Kissing Cousins, a farce that moves faster and faster in circles until the whole dizzy cast collapses.

By CHRISTOPHER SMITH

Jill Freud & Company, at Southwold, are in top form for the world premiere of Ian Masters's Kissing Cousins, a farce that moves faster and faster in circles until the whole dizzy cast collapses. All ends up in a cats-cradle of arms, legs and misunderstandings.

Maurice Rubens provides, as ever, a setting that is as firm as a rock. It needs to be, with everything soon off its rocker as characters dash through open doors to encounter closed minds and upstairs only to find they will be let down. Gulping down the heady homebrew, three couples end up one over the eight as a plumber arrives.

It's all quite simple really. But the accountant (Michael Hoskinson) who has got his sums all wrong finds he can't make reality add up either as he unhesitatingly seizes the wrong end of the stick with a grip of iron.

The loop of events goes round, faster and faster, loopier and loopier. Enter more characters: a Midlander with a line in Elvis and a wife with a gift for suggesting more than she ever intended, a sister-in-law who looks forward to seeing some sparks fly and her current boyfriend with a foible for Seattle-style psychology.

With director Richard Frost keeping his foot on the accelerator, this is just the thing for a seaside funicular.