THIS bittersweet comedy by the writer of the Calendar Girls is the fourth time Stephen Tompkinson has worked with its author Tim Firth so it’s not surprising he knows how to get the best out of the script.

Tompkinson is touching as Frank Tollit, the expert in fixing words to buildings but who struggles to place them together in the gripping spy thriller he so longs to pen.

The role could have been written for his archetypal brand of pathos – combining gentle humour with emotional charge – but instead began as a character from a one-act piece commissioned by Alan Ayckborn in 1991.

Warrington-born Firth extended it into a full length play in 2006, enabling it to end on a more up-beat note than the original.

In the first act, Tollit is the proud head of electrical installation for a commercial lettering company who is looking after a teenager on work experience. In the second, the tables have turned and it is Alan (Tom Shaw) who is in charge of Frank, under a back-to-work scheme for the long-term unemployed.

The stage set is also spun around during the interval – with the ledge upon which they are placing the letters at the outset later positioned outside Alan’s new office. Not that there is any need for fancy scenery with such a cleverly composed script exploring questions we all ask ourselves about our choices in life.

Fortunately Firth does not attempt to provide any two-dimensional answers or tacky soundbites, and the play ends not so much with a neatly wrapped-up resolution as on a hint of optimism.

Shaw comfortably meets the challenge of playing the same character at two different stages in life, with some of the teenager’s traits creeping into the personality of the trainee manager.

A delightful script and thoughtful acting make this a timeless piece of theatre.