There's sex, alcohol, arguments and cancer, yet what this show lacks is drama Rabbit Trafalgar Studios, London SW1

Even in the most contemporary of settings, there is something gripping about women talking dirty. Nina Raine, writer and director of Rabbit, her debut play, clearly knows this, and gets much mirth out of women dissecting the more intimate areas of male anatomy with gusto. Rabbit, which has just transferred to the West End after a successful run at a London fringe theatre, centres on one night at a London bar with a group of urbane sophisticates. It's Bella's 29th birthday and she has invited a trio of friends, including an ex, to help celebrate. At the start of the night, while she's still on the white wine, she bumps into another old flame and encourages him to join them.

What follows is a reasonably entertaining hundred minutes of banter as the spirited Bella (Charlotte Randle) and her mates flirt, storm off to the loos in a strop and generally operate as people do when they are between the student routine and the mortgage-and-kids routine.

There's a row about jobs and about whether Bella's old boyfriend Richard (barrister and wannabe writer) has a more prestigious career than Bella, who has a lucrative but "mindless" job in PR. Richard is played by Adam James with a particularly well-observed combination of mouth-trembling sensitivity and brashness. He needs to bond with Tom (Alan Westaway), the other bloke, for no other reason than that they are both blokes. So, it's girls against boys as the wine turns to shots.

But there's a twist. Bella's dad, played until 23 September by Hilton McRae (and thenceforth by Martin Turner), is dying from a brain tumour. He might even pass away that night. Bella knows it and her friend Emily knows it, but Bella doesn't want to leave her party. She's cross with him for not opting to have surgery and anyway she wants to get pissed. It's her birthday, after all.

Yet she can't keep him out of her head, and so Father keeps turning up, hovering on the sidelines in a hospital gown, like a sort of Green Wing-style Banquo's Ghost. But Father is really only a cipher who's there to explain Bella. Every time he arrives, another slice of back story is served up. We are told she is his favourite; we see their father-daughter rows, see her struggling with Latin homework and trying to cope with terminal illness.

There are thousands of women in London like Bella. She's well-educated (hence the Latin scene); she likes her drink, likes her sex, even likes doing a bit of weird stuff in bed - not too weird, though. Rabbit is not a glimpse of the dark underbelly of society and Bella is no frightening dominatrix. All this evening represents is a witty, affectionate view of completely unexceptional British life - a world where men have their testicles shaved by middle-class girls, where everyone drinks shots, where everyone's a little bit lazy, where "careerist" women are feared and where elderly parents get carried off by medical nasties.

For all their liveliness, Raine's characters lack a fully motivated plot within which they can operate, and thus they spend an inordinate amount of time spouting clichés. There is also a rather tiresome cul-de-sac about memory, which seemed like something that had got lost on its way to the recent Radio 4 series on the same topic.

The trouble is that there is no substantial plot to drive things along. An audience can only spend so long watching people chat around a table. Although Raine peps things up with a little tinkling angel and four candles, it's not a great device. At half the length and with no interval, she might have got away with it. But this is a full-length play, and so, after about 40 minutes, one begins to wait anxiously for something properly dramatic to happen. Nudity, sex on the table, a chunky death scene, a shock of sorts, a denouement of sorts - anything. All we get, however, is more of what is promised by the unfortunately appropriate title.

For further info and booking details visit www.theambassadors.com

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