I watched the Studio Theatre Company's latest Discworld production, The Truth, at Abingdon's Unicorn Theatre, with a professional eye. And not just because it features a campaigning investigative journalist, writes Tim Metcalfe.

The printing system used to print the Ankh-Morpork Times can take dictation at 2,000 words per minute thanks to the nimble fingers of the dwarves and does not stop working without warning or send its operators error messages along the lines of "your Futtock 2000 has suffered a fatal inversion". No, the only error message on this machine is, "The dwarves are on their tea break. Please try later." But I digress . . .

This was the Studio Theatre's ninth adaptation of a Discworld novel, this one appearing as Terry Pratchett's book hits the top of the best-seller lists.

Briefly, the plot concerns a dastardly scheme to replace Ankh-Morpork's ruler Lord Vetinari, stylishly played by Stephen Briggs, with a doppleganger which is discovered by reluctant newspaper magnate William DeWorde (Simon Vyvyan).

At the centre of all the mayhem and double dealing are a couple of not very nice people at all Mr Pin (Peter Laurence) and Mr Tulip (Dave Weaver). A mutation of Reservoir Dogs and Hale and Pace's The Management, Laurence and Weaver made a convincingly nasty and very funny double-act.

The 25-strong cast all produced polished and well-crafted performances, especially Trev Collins as the long-suffering Vimes, commander of the City Watch. But I felt that this production needed a few more 'big' laughs and may have benefited from some judicious pruning of scenes to cut down the running time a little. The Unicorn Theatre is a chilly place at this time of year . . .