A considerable amount of meat has been grafted onto the bones of John McClelland's play since it was first unveiled by Tinderbox Theatre Company as a rehearsed reading during last year's April Sundays season of new writing.
If anything, he and director Stephen Wright have rather overloaded this gently intriguing story, introducing a welter of issues and talking points and then going on to offer a perfectly rational, two-sided perspective for each one.
There is a danger that the tragically unproductive life story of retired civil servant James Stewart will sink without trace beneath all the chat Yet, thankfully, that doesn't happen. This is largely due to the timely interventions of the ghost of James's dead brother, the dashing naval hero Johnny, who gets the self-examinations back on track and frogmarches his sibling into confronting some terrible, long-buried truths.
In performance terms, the main problem is that Julia Dearden's home help Isobelle is not the required million miles removed from Linda Wray's affluent Evie. Des Braiden however is excellent as James, a man on whom is written the history of the 20th century in Ireland and who has contrived to remain always the onlooker - even in the existence of his own daughter.
Barry Barnes, the witty. handsome, ever-young Johnny, basking in John Riddell's mellow, starlit lighting, stamps real drama onto McClelland's engaging storytelling.
The play continues at the Old Museum (0801 232 233332) til Saturday, then tours to Ballymena, Armagh, Whitehead, Sligo, Strabane, Derry, Newry, Donaghmore, Monaghan and Coleraine until February 28th.