Theatre review: Serve Cold, Gryphon Venues at The Point HOtel (Venue 109), Edinburgh

ON the banks of the Clyde, in the moonlit shadow of a waterfront regeneration housing development, a woman looks up at an apartment window.

Serve Cold

Gryphon Venues at the Point Hotel (Venue 109)

Star rating: * * *

Her reverie is interrupted by another woman who isn’t nearly as well-spoken… the only two women on the waterfront this dark night: a spurned woman staking out the flat of her ex-lover with bitter thoughts on her mind, and a prostitute with a cheery nature and lots of questions.

Writer and director Mark MacNicol’s play is an agreeably grubby piece of Tartan Noir which sets up a nasty revenge plot that barely remains within the bounds of probability. It works though, and keeps the attention through a combination of Elaine McKergow and Nicola Clark’s capable performances and the well-drawn characters’ rejection of type.

While the vengeful lover is a morally shallow character driven by scheming impulse, the prostitute is a devout Christian who fears at every turn “the bad fire”, even as she doesn’t seem to grasp how her career contradicts this.

Like many of Tartan Noir’s best exponents, such as Ian Rankin or Allan Guthrie, Serve Cold makes no deep point even as it paints a suitably nasty tableau.

• Until 27 August. Today 3:30pm.