Tom Stoppard is best known for some of the brainiest plays of recent years, covering themes as varied as quantum physics, moral philosophy and nineteenth-century Russian politics. His early work, Enter a Free Man - playing at Keble College until Saturday - is a slightly different kettle of fish. Located in 1960s suburbia, it covers more everyday themes of disappointment, family discord and self-deception.

The central character is George, a tragic-comic figure who believes himself to be a great, undiscovered inventor. He tinkers in his workshop all day, coming up with ridiculous and useless devices, while his long-suffering wife, Persephone, cleans and puts food on the table and his teenage daughter, Linda, works in a department store to provide her mum and dad with pocket money.

George escapes with his weekly ten bob note to the local pub, where he holds forth, attempting to persuade strangers that he really is a neglected genius. Meanwhile, at home, Linda is increasingly frustrated by her father's bizarre behaviour, and decides to elope with her boyfriend. But she too, we realize, lives to some degree in a world of fantasy and escapism.

It's an odd play - funny, engaging and moving in parts, but somehow lacking in focus. Is it an absurdist comedy - Ionesco meets Reginald Perrin? Or a kitchen sink drama depicting a family coping with mental illness? Or a gentle fable on the ways we all tell lies to make life more bearable? All these strands are present, but fail to produce a satisfying whole, and the play is occasionally repetitive and too long to carry its slender premise.

Despite a couple of first-night technical hitches, the Collapsible Theatre group did a fine job. Andrew Hollingbury gave a good interpretation of George, switching from boastful to whining to pathetic and eliciting real sympathy at the end. The best performances, though, came from Lotte Wakeham as Linda and the excellent Poppy Burton-Morgan as Persephone; the scenes between these two were the highlight of the evening.

For me, an interesting but ultimately disappointing work from a playwright who went on to far greater things - but don't let this put you off going along to make up your own mind, and enjoy some fine acting in the process.

George Tew 25/1/2005