Play On Words, Tristan Bates Theatre, London
Until 23 Jan, daily except Sunday, 7:30pm.  Theatre website.

Bring me a hot toddy, mop my fevered brow and for goodness' sake, make sure my Will's in order. I'm afraid it's true: FringeGuru has had man-flu. And so, aside from a few pathetic croaks on Twitter, I've been out of action for most of this week - but now I'm back in business and ready to tackle my over-burdened to-do list, at whose head I find Play on Words, the London debut of the exciting young theatre group Three's Company.

Left to right: Yaz Al-Shaater, Michael Grady-Hall, Tom Crawshaw

And I can warn you that you'll need to be on your toes, for our dramatic duo's quest leads them through a veritable checklist of theatrical chicanery. Let's see now: we have a play within a play, actors planted in the audience, various offences against the fourth wall and - gosh! - an unreliable narrator. Even the tech box offers no sanctuary, as lighting engineer "Jonnie" chips in with frequent cameos over the PA.

Yes, all of this has been done many times before, but I'm still won over by the simple chutzpah of throwing so many concepts into the blender. It could easily get out of hand, but it doesn't; it's a tight and finely-engineered work, where details of dialogue which at first seem off-the-wall later prove perfectly-formed and crucial.

And there is, as the title suggests, a ream of fine word-play too. When author Tom Crawshaw has Fred declare that audiences are "very stupid," he's giving us a coded pat on the back; he trusts us to defy his character's doubts, and he'll throw in a few iambic-pentameter gags to prove it. Unashamedly, Play on Words is a clever work about clever people, full of clever allusion for a clever audience. It's fashionable to look down one's nose at such self-conscious intellectualism - but this particular script is intriguing enough to pull it off.

I'd always thought that Crawshaw's writing was Three's Company's strongest suit; but after seeing Michael Grady-Hall's performance as Fred, I might have to share the honours. The knowingly corny early scenes are entertaining enough, but it's only later that Grady-Hall really shows us what he's made of, holding things together by a thread as his character's world starts to crumble in around him. One difficult, ambitious segue from happiness to despair was utterly convincing, and a final outburst of frightening violence triggered both shock and empathy. Making up the threesome, Yaz Al-Shaater gives a selfless but quietly comedic performance as Eddie - and guest member Meriel Rosenkranz is superb too, ably capturing Fred's long-suffering girlfriend Jen.

It wasn't quite perfect. The last, darkest, third of the play felt rather rushed to me; moments of tension were wasted because there wasn't time to take them in, and Grady-Hill didn't have the space he needed to fully explore his character's mental decline. A couple of minutes' breathing room would be enough, and trimming some of the thespier word-play from the earlier scenes would be a painful but worthy sacrifice.

Still and all, Play on Words has made an impressive London debut, and I'm delighted to see it develop so much since I first reviewed it in Edinburgh. Even more than that, I'm excited by what could yet be to come; it's easy to forget how young Three's Company are, and how much they might still have to show us as their work and their craft matures. But that's for another day. In the meantime, do make sure you catch Play on Words if you're in London; but hurry, you've only got until this Saturday.