Betrayal @ Citizens, Glasgow

With all the Pinterisms present and correct (verbal games of cat and mouse; awkward weighty pauses, endless filling and re-filling of wine glasses) the one main difference in Dominic Hill's adaptation of Pinter's 1978 classic is the Scottish accents... I had always perceived Pinter's work as quintessentially English and wondered if this would be a distraction. 

Thankfully, no such worries. This is theatre which absolutely transcends such concerns – and is resolutely modern, still – a tense, forensic dissection of the lies which trickle down the years, working backwards, from stilted bar reunion between ex-lovers to the first fumbling seduction. Hywel Simons' Jerry is a neurotic presence, wrestling with his conscience, and some apalling 70s knitwear, as he contemplates telling his best friend Robert (Cal Macaninch) that he has been sleeping with his wife Emma (Neve Mcintosh). But how much does Robert already know?

The cast are an absolute joy – Mcintosh moving seamlessly from panicked housewife to coltish young coquette, but it's Macaninch who provides the shivery backbone, simmering with unspoken threat – rarely have a pair of eyes been so shark-like in their intensity.

As the revolving sets shift (bar to restaurant to living room to boudoir, rather like a sinister Generation Game) unpicking the menage a trois' excuses like festering scabs, the underlying message of Betrayal seems to be that some people will never learn how to square their appetites with the minutiae of responsibility and just being an adult in general. [Missy Lorelai]