The weight of expectation surrounding the fourth play in John Byrne's Slab Boys series is unavoidable. Paddy Cunneen's production begins 30 years after former likely lads Phil and Spanky last met, but they are still men behaving badly.

Phil remains a painter, getting his head together in the country with his Turner Prize-nominated partner Didi, when his world is invaded by bequiffed TV pseud Corky and arts radio hack Nancy. When has-been rock star Spanky stumbles into the frame, closely followed by mutual muse Lucille, a great big emotional tussle between generations and genders ensues. Only when producer Miles turns up, though, do the umbilical links of collective history become clear.

Phil is Billy Childish to Spanky's Tommy Saxondale, defiantly unreconstructed and not a little bewildered at how they leaped from enfants terribles to elder statesmen with only lost years in between.

Yesterday's rebels, however, are still mammy's boys at heart. The new generation's sporting of 57 varieties of rock'n'roll and hippy chic, however, is telling. They may rule the roost just now, but they're destined to repeat a whole lot more than mere fashion statements.

In scope, Nova Scotia is equal parts Ibsen and Chekhov, dealing with the unfinished business of hand-me-down dysfunctions as much as marking the end of an innocent idyll. In delivery, despite the best efforts of Paul Morrow and Gerry Mulgrew, it's not quite caught fire yet. The sucker-punching banter needs sharpening to make all the love, hate, pain and betrayal involved as poignant as it's written. As the second act rumbles along, however, the slow road to heartbreak bites harder, sadder and tragically wiser.