David Watson’s new play feels like a jigsaw puzzle constructed from tragedy. We watch the pieces, scattered without chronology around the theatre, and build them into coherence for ourselves. A piano teacher is besotted with his student. A policeman, tasked with breaking bad news to a grandmother, is confronted with memories of the traumatic loss of his son. Two friends displace the distance between them with drugs. A settled, professional woman meets with her restless old flame, Vincent. All these narrative threads become united by the terrorist bombing that results in Vincent’s death.

The episodic and elliptical arc of the narrative is mirrored beautifully by the innovative fragmentation of the setting. The audience is seated on cushions and we swivel to follow the action that takes place on all four sides of the theatre. Each set piece is hidden until needed by gauze screens, onto which intermittent and immersive filmed sequences are projected. These pre-recorded segments are particularly excellent, lending a pleasing nostalgic and ephemeral feel, though the gauze did occasionally obstruct the actors’ efforts.

The play is essentially about loss, not just in the robbery of life through the acts of terrorism that link the scenes and characters, but the loss of love, considered through unrequited affection, the breakdown of friendships, the estrangement of relatives and the weight of the unsaid that bears down on former lovers. Each scene is in some way an aftermath. Even the terrorist has lost his father to illness. Everyone is searching for some form of consolation, and occasionally, in each other, they find it.

The script is nuanced and delicately delivered by the entire ensemble, but there are unfortunately a few scenes which let it down. Over the course of the play, we see Vincent repeatedly and we learn of his background through a relative and a former lover. Christopher, the gifted young student and object of the music teacher’s affections, was another victim of the same tragedy, but as the play’s title suggests, it is Vincent alone that holds it together.

The scenes concerning Christopher and his loss are simply weaker. For a start, we only see him in the flesh once, and while all the other narratives are enhanced by the projected segments, they skip him entirely. It leaves us with the feeling that of the nine characters two were tacked on, lazily messaged into the script for the sake of narrative rather than fully developed. I couldn’t help but feel that piece would be completed and enhanced either by an extra scene or two to build them into something less two dimensional or more succinctly by their removal. Overall, though, Pieces of Vincent is touching, sensitive, well performed and artfully produced. In spite of its imperfections this is well worth a look.

Till 25 September 2010