Students of both theatre studies and the more practical side of drama should make a date with A Play, A Pie and A Pint this week to see how some things should be done.

As a technical exercise, Alma Cullen's play is a polished gem. Michael MacKenzie and Vincent Friell are the second and first husbands of deceased fashion journalist Lily Harper, the victim of a heart attack while out running to preserve her stick-like figure. MacKenzie is Bernard, the vice-chancellor of a Glasgow university, Friell a poet whose early acclaim has given way to a life of idleness.

Cullen's clever trick is the presence of Bryony McRoberts throughout as Lily, commenting on the exchanges between her partners as double-edged lines are exchanged across her elegant black-clad form. That the dialogue never sounds contrived while working in this way throughout the piece is a matter of consummate skill. The casting, in Ken Alexander's production, could also hardly be bettered.

McRoberts, if not wraith-like, is skeletally stylish, and perches on a tomb that doubles as a bar-counter, university desk and bench press; MacKenzie is substantial and tweedy, and Friell leather-jacketed and slightly wasted.

At first the practised professionalism on stage almost undermines the show. It is easy to admire but harder to care about. Then Cullen's purpose becomes clear as both men move to cash in on Lily's media fame. The subject is the ownership of life after death and Lily's earthly existence as one who made her living from the media's obsession with image and celebrity gives her little right to voice her complaints from beyond the grave. No wonder her final desperate appeal to the audience falls on deaf ears.