The 'Are You being Served?' theme tune that opens this show is well chosen: suitably misleading, for there is something far more sinister than ill-judged comedy here - indeed there is a sureness and poise in its good taste that never deserts it, even in the crinkly and damp regions of oral sex - buts also appropriate, for the tale works by being highly conventional, running smoothly on well worn rails, all the more effective for the force of inevitability this momentum draws behind and around it.

Patrick Gale's tale of 'Wig' finds brunette Wanda, wife and mother of two and, most importantly, Muggins for a soft sell, irrationally attracted to a blonde wig. Eventually purchasing and then experimenting with it, first in domestic scenes of illicit-like covert practice sessions and then in increasingly powerful public displays. But the power always comes at a cost. Everything that the wig gives it takes back in pain and uncertainty. The more Wanda becomes a new woman the more she realises - and we with her - that this wig is not her property, no prop, no soon-to-be-discarded accessory. It has a life independent of its owner. It has roots! And history. Beneath the emotionally grisly suspense and tension, beneath the subtle and quotidian horror, there is a parable here of commodities that still retain the dead labour of their makers - this commodity is made of people, of human hair.

Gale's performance is assured and paced to perfection, our attention never strays. The text in his hand soon disappears and we enter the world of Wanda's home, car and emotions. The soundscape, grumbling and growling like a creaking portal of hell opening just under the thick pile carpet; made by Jon Nichols it adds a chill at the appropriate moments without intruding on the rhythms of the prose. And apart from a couple of puzzling circumambulations of his chair at the very beginning of the show, the staging is always economical and effective. The lighting, designed by Matthew Biss, is wonderful, closing down the action to the psychological, the claustrophobic, the microcosmic.

As Wanda's wig begins to lock on corporeally, to dig like a parasite, granting power and desirability, the commodity comes alive, the legacy of its making taking on a horrible after-life. An often hilarious and always amusing and good-humoured dark tale, this is also something more - an accessible parable, leaving its audience with much enjoyment to take away and plenty to think about.

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