Back in the Seventies, long before he was a film star, Steve Martin virtually re-invented the art of stand-up comedy. Freeing himself, Monty Python-like, from the constraints of punchlines, he mesmerised hip, west coast audiences with wild flights of his imagination.

Subconsciously, perhaps, he has tried to do the same with his first venture in the legitimate theatre, currently enjoying its European premiere in Yorkshire.

Actually, 'enjoying' may be too strong a word, since Martin's brand of way-out word and mind-play has not been universally welcomed here.

The setting is the Lapin Agile, a real bar in Montmartre in which a fictitious meeting takes place between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso, shortly before each produces his masterpiece. "Nice work - if you like blue," admires the great physicist.

In part, it's pure Steve Martin. "The word 'no' became like a Polish village - unpronounceable," says an admirer of Picasso. And there are revelatory touches, such as when the actors break character to query the order of their appearance with the audience.

And yet, Picasso at the Lapin Agile is a disappointment: a collection of inspired moments which somehow do not gel into a cohesive whole.

The staging doesn't help. The set seems as big as the whole of Montmartre - too vast to convey the necessary atmosphere. There is similar space between some of the lines.

Sean Blowers, familiar from London's Burning, anchors the cast, but the idiomatic dialogue does not always travel well. A great shame.

David Behrens

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