Ian Ogilvy might have been 'The Saint' in the television series featuring the detective Simon Templar, but the language in the first play he has written and directed was anything but saintly, writes David Hall.

In fact, the first blusteringly abusive appearance of Donald Douglas as playwright Sir Lewis Messenger in A Slight Hangover was as coarse and abrasive as the roughest sandpaper for the usually sensitive audience relaxing for its post-dinner entertainment at the Mill at Sonning.

This was a pity because, apart from the language, this desert island 'risk' was anything but risqu - it had superb comic moments, a simple storyline with the inevitable twist in the tale, and some splendid acting. The sparring partnership of Douglas and Ian Burford as famous painter Orson Woodley are suddenly faced with Emily Richard as Olga Whitehall - the daughter of their belated former lover, Giselle - wanting to know which of the two is her father.

The snappy lines comes thick and fast from the cracking duo - "Giselle held us together like Velcro" or, Burford's complaint when he was given too little whisky, "This is an Alan Ladd of whiskies" - and the intervention of the limp-wristed Brian Godfrey (a London waiter on holiday who longs to work for the pair) and Damien Goodwin as the American literary agent for Sir Lewis adds further sparkle and twists to a well-worked script. The extra dimension of Rae Baker as Amanda, the granddaughter of one of the old profligates, is an added sparkle both to the eyes and to the storyline.

Jacqueline Hutson has managed to design an admirable set, the Caribbean island home of the two men, and Ian Ogilvy does introduce useful movement and attention-grabbing repartee between the combatants.

Ogilvy's first play will certainly become one of the classics, easily adaptable for small theatrical groups, and more so if the language is better controlled. Saintly it was not - entertaining, certainly.