THIS week they're offering two plays for the price of one – and what terrific value director Lottie Ward has served up!

The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter provides a perfect vehicle for the considerable talent of Kevin Sheppard and Shane Gough as Ben and Gus, assassins cooped up in a dingy basement waiting for the call to action.

The dialogue is Pinter at his very best, edgy, disjointed, naturalistic, as the men attempt to cope with claustrophobia. Ben reclines on the bed, composing himself reading the paper. Gus is all nervous energy.

Then enter the dumb waiter, an old-fashioned contraption once found in restaurants to hoist meals from kitchen to dining-room. Suddenly it goes into action, bizarrely bringing orders for meals. For a moment the two men are in panic. The tension rises and physical conflict ensues.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago by David Mamet is from the mid-1970s – poignantly evoked by music, hairstyles and clothes – and records contemporary fixation with gender battles.

Paul Varnam, reprising a role he first played 13 years ago, is staggeringly brilliant as the louche fantasist Bernard Litko.

Helen Forsyth makes a witheringly acerbic Joan permanently in conflict with Bernard. Amy Harwood excels as nice girl Deborah, falling for Luke Garbutt's impressionable Danny, before reality kicks in.

Both plays will make you laugh out loud and think deeply long afterwards.

It runs until Saturday.