Panning for Gold

This heartfelt and heart-warming play unfolds at a support group where three young women meet with an older group leader and, over the course of a number of sessions, confront and attempt to deal with their related emotional problems. The cause of their collective trauma is not immediately made clear, although we gather in each case it concerns a former partner. To say anything more about the plot would detract from the show, which becomes dramatically compelling through the drip-feeding of details about the experiences of these women.

As the session progress, the group leader encourages the women to express their emotions through acting, initially in improvised scenarios and subsequently through one of Shakespeare’s plays, appropriately enough the romantic tragedy Antony and Cleopatra. It’s a nice literary conceit, and the use of a key scene from the Bard’s play brings this simply staged, well-acted show to a properly and pleasingly dramatic climax.

Laughing Horse @ The Phoenix, 557 0234, until 26 Aug (not 21), 2.05pm, free.