It is difficult to know what to make of Double Double, billed as a comedy thriller by Eric Ellice and Roger Rees.

It is not gripping enough to be a thriller, funny enough to be a comedy or engaging enough to be a romance, though, granted, it does contain elements of all three.

Philippa James has brought a Dundonian down-and-out, Duncan McPhee, into her luxury apartment (a stunning set by O C Wood, Merrily Powell and Pete Wallis) in London.

She wants him to impersonate her late husband so she can inherit his fortune......but of course, this is a thriller and it can’t be as simple as that. And it isn’t. The problem with Merrily Powell’s production is that it is too much of the same pace.

The new plot directions are not marked by a corresponding change of pace, or reaction from the cast, so the audience ends up more than perplexed about what is going on.

There is always a problem with two people being onstage for the entire evening. The verbose script needs to be learned and there is not a lot of time left to create believable characters. Helen Wuscher as Philippa has a particularly hard task.

Chris Palmer is more successful as Duncan, though his character is more likely to found strolling on the banks of the Boyne rather than the Tay.

If you can put up with the longueurs of the first act, however, the denouement and its remarkable coup de theatre is well worth waiting for.