An inept dud penetrates the Park Theatre’s dross-filters – and I blame Beckett

Jonah and Otto is a lost-soul melodrama that keeps its audience guessing. Where are we? The Channel coast somewhere. Indoors or out? Not sure. Near a church maybe? Violence barges in. Jonah, a mouthy scruff, shoves a knife in the face of Otto, a dignified old gent with Big Ears whiskers and a dark, elegant suit. This strange assault is followed by further peculiarities. Rather than calling the cops, Otto seeks a rapprochement with Jonah and they start a rambling, off-beat friendship. Later we discover that Otto, a Cambridge-educated vicar, has an adult daughter who was crippled in childhood by a road accident, and this detail lends credibility to his desire to befriend and redeem his mugger.

But the relevant information arrives far too late. And while Otto is a coherent character, Jonah is an exploding bird’s nest of illogicalities. He’s a jobless thief who earns spare cash doing conjuring tricks in pubs (does anyone make money like that?).