Actually, that isn’t entirely true. It would be more accurate to say that Dead Beet is the story of a man dealing with encroaching blindness, who happens to be a clockmaker named Gregory, and who happens to be receiving lessons in Braille from a woman named Sian.

The play is produced by the Turnaround Theatre Company, which, according to the programme, aims to produce “a distinctive brand of quality drama… Challenging, questioning and confronting issues and causes which we care about”. Dead Beet certainly confronts issues, but it sometimes strays dangerously close to rhetoric. There are times when the dialogue feels a little forced, and most of these times are when the characters start Talking About Issues rather than just talking like real people. The character of Sian, in particular, often seemed to become more of a spokesperson for the blind than a character in her own right.

The cast all give reasonable performances in their various roles. Bird is by turns confused, frightened and bitter as he comes to terms with his failing sight. Bassani (herself blind from birth, and here making her stage debut), is convincing as his more experienced mentor. Seal complements the other two well. The two principals did occasionally seem less than entirely familiar with their lines, but this will hopefully prove to be less of a problem in later performances, once the actors have had time to get over the trials of the first night.

Another difficulty which, hopefully, can be put down to the problems of a first performance was the lengthy pause that followed every scene. Since the scenes themselves were fairly short, this led to what seemed like half of the first act being spent waiting in the dark, listening to the whispers from the row behind. These long periods of dead time could also be attributed to the limited size of the crew, and the fact that the role of Sian called for innumerable costume changes, which is not a good idea for a character who is in almost every scene in the play. Whatever the cause, the pauses, coupled with the faintly claustrophobic nature of the Burton Taylor made the first act a little disjointed, and a little uncomfortable.

So we come again to the bottom line: Is this play worth your time and money? It certainly has very high aims, and it does sometimes manage to handle its core issues very strongly. It is at its best when it is being subtle; for example every time we encounter Leslie at her desk, she is engaged in some everyday task which relies entirely on vision (applying makeup, sending and receiving text messages, and so on). It falls down when it strays into exposition.

If you have a spare evening, and you’re interested in either local independent drama, or the issues raised in this particular play, it’s probably worth a look. Otherwise, you may want to look elsewhere.