Through such plays as Revenge and Christie in Love, Howard Brenton has quickly won himself a reputation as one of our most strikingly original young dramatists. However, this new piece [Fruit] … is so shrill, hysterical and uncoordinated, that it makes one wonder where precisely Mr. Brenton's acknowledged love of excess is leading him.

Admittedly it bears all his familiar trademarks: the relish for grotesque physical detail, the fascination with the corrupting effect of power, the love of theatrical shock tactics. But whereas before his obsession with the narrow dividing line between the policeman and his prey has helped to focus all his dramatic energies, he here seems to be flailing wildly about in all directions…. [There] is no dramatic law that says playwrights who preach anarchy themselves have to practise it; and Mr. Brenton gravely weakens a perfectly tenable viewpoint by failing to give the separate scenes an...