Never boring is one thing you can say about Never Have I Ever, the latest production at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre. Funny, provocative, energetic, outrageous and, at times, just plain silly, yes – but never boring.

This is a debut play for The Guilty Feminist podcaster Deborah Frances-White.

It is centred around an ultra-trendy boutique restaurant (no doubt in Islington) which offers guests an “immersive” meal – they can watch their meals being cooked at their table and maybe even peel the odd onion.

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The only problem is that the restaurant isn’t just losing money, it’s bankrupt.

And to make matters worse for the owners Jacq (Alex Roach) and Kas (Amit Shah), the £125,000 initial funding has come from an old university mate Tobin (Greg Wise), an ultra-successful hedge fund investor.

The news is broken to Tobin and his wife Adageo (Susan Wokoma) over the ultimate “dinner party from hell”, the last meal to be served in the restaurant.

The overall production and design are up to Chichester’s usual high standards, as are the performances but the script was just a tad too dependent on some well-worn political arguments and a rather cliched cast of characters.

There’s Adaego, the “angry” black woman (from an upper-class background), Kas (of Asian heritage) ultra-polite until he finally isn’t, Jacq, the working-class Welsh bisexual and Tobin, the older “pale and stale” male, the predictable villain of the piece.

The play turns on Tobin who, after much drink has been taken, discovers that ten years ago, the other three (while he was way in Paris completing his PhD) had a threesome.

They thought little of it at the time but that is not how Tobin now sees it. His revenge is to offer Jacq £650,000 to perform oral sex.

No spoilers here, but at this point the play’s credibility begins to look a little threadbare.

Nonetheless, boring? Never. But believable? Not always.

Never Have I Ever runs until until September 30.