Untitled is a play with so broad a scope and so many points of reference that it could hardly be called anything else.

The inspiration is Art, not in the customary sense of   an audience reaction, but vice versa. Playwright Katy Matthews takes a wide sweep through the Western canon and selects Hals’ Laughing Cavalier, an antique Roman bust, Picasso’s discarded Dora Maar, and a scarlet PreRaphaelite nymph to chat amongst themselves, bemoaning  modern tropes with surreal results.

Master of ceremonies is disillusioned  older artist Gert whose dialogue with the camp old Roman marble provides some of the best lines in the play.  

It’s very clever and imaginative with some brilliantly ingenious moments: occasionally, the one-liners rival oft-quoted Oscar who, like Shaw and Matthews, has fun reversing the norm to  great comic effect.  Cyril Blake clearly relishes the waspish campery of his headline role, Rachel Sparkes plays up Lady for all she’s worth while Simon Taylor nearly steals the show as the hapless exhibition manager. 

Aycan Garip is horribly effective in the unsympathetic role of an autistic younger Gert:   senior version Lesley Arnold asks good questions but answers, like life and like art, remain irresolvable.