CURIOSITY got the better of me and I joined a largish audience at the 500-seater venue to cast an eye over Stockton-born playwright Tom Casling's brave decision to stage his own debut play for three performances at a top regional theatre.

You certainly can't fault the writer, who is based in Durham, for ambition or originality, with a comedy-drama based around a couple coping, or in this case not coping, with their 20-year-old son's suicide.

In the hands of an enthusiastic amateur cast and director Gordon Bond from Durham Dramatic Society, the work becomes a daunting prospect. So many scenes are crammed into the first half, plus musical interludes from singer/guitarist John Trainor, that the plot's flow inevitably suffers.

The characters are a little crudely equipped but Peter Dawson and Helen Harries, as William and Millicent Foot, enlist our sympathy as the bereaved couple.

No disrespect to confident cast member Matthews Andrews, but he's a little on the old side to make a convincing mysterious student Arthur, who the couple take on as a lodger as part of their rehabilitation process.

Felicity Wood's portrayal of Deirdre, a bereavement counsellor, becomes an uncomfortable tightrope journey, wavering between figure of fun and one of life's gushing do-gooders.

Added into the mix are a neat cameos from Nina Jakeman, a student claiming to be over six months pregnant by the couple's dead son, and Jonathon Jones as a police officer.

This script may well work much better as a TV project but it's certainly full of promising possibilities.