Darren Brealey writes with some facility; he gets an idea, sits down bubbling with gusto and knocks off a one-actor.

This book holds a very interesting group of plays. They seem to hit their targets very precisely, as the settings do not have a locale-specific context. FERGUS' ENVY invites us to the eccentric Lord Florien Thurst's mansion where a week-long birthday party is in full swing for his pet dog, Fergus. THE STAIR has a nice Kafkaesque, Pinteresque, Beckettesque feeling of menacing pointlessness. Darren Brealey's sharp, all-encompassing vision takes us swiftly from a smart drawing-room 'house party' scenario to a car repair shop at the witching hour (lunch time), and thence to the lounge area of a multiplex cinema.

THE CHICKS is like a glimpse into another and more dreadful world, but alas, truthful. Cynical? You could say. When one of the characters in DISTURBING MAVIS exits pursued by a bier, you know you have a playwright with a special take on life.

Be warned, the personalities portrayed in Performing The Goat might actually exist - what a tragedy that would be.

Richly humorous, sometimes extreme in its language, and devastating in its portrayal of social pitfalls, this collection of one-acters will make you laugh out loud, and then wonder about it all. 'The Goat' in the title is surely a reference to the Greek tragos, which gave us tragedy ... something you may feel tinges many of our lifetime antics.

There is a rather curious market for new and original plays. There are theatre groups all over, schools, colleges, amateur societies, and they find it hard to come by interesting new material to work with. They want contemporary material, and often an unfamiliar piece is better to work with than something everyone knows and where opinions are formed. Therefore a market has been developed for new and previously unpublished or performed plays.

Apart from Disturbing Mavis, all other six plays are comedies.