A play written by, directed by and also starring Steven Berkoff, the one-time enfant terrible of British theatre, was bound to provoke some kind of reaction.

I just didn't expect the emotion to be boredom. But that is what I felt, overwhelmingly, as the grief of an East End Jewish family plays out exactly as you predict it will some time before the interval.

Berkoff revisits fragments of his own childhood here, not least his mishearing of the title phrase.

No one, except perhaps the audience, is sitting around getting chilly. It is, rather, a take on the Jewish custom of "sitting shiva", of mourning a death for seven days.

The deceased in question is the father of middle-aged Debbi, by all accounts a decent family man. You don't, however, have to keep too close an eye on those accounts to know what is going to befall them.

Shrewish housewife/mother Debbi (Sue Kelvin) is joined by her put-upon husband Lionel (a surprisingly affable turn from Berkoff) and various other caricatures for a garrulous gathering, whose conversation focuses on bodily functions and food.

Everyone bellows unaccountably and indulges in strange, exaggerated gestures, as well as expressionistic tableaux that intersperse the scenes.

And yet, despite all this energy, it is nigh on impossible to discern one genuine emotion.

At least seven characters are on stage most of the time, yet we find out nothing of significance about any of them.

There's a brief promise of depth for Debbi and Lionel's son Mike (Russell Bentley), a struggling actor, and his shiksa fiancée Sylv (Leila Crerar), but soon they're back with everyone else, indulging in that always-annoying stage custom of pretending to eat and drink from empty plates and cups.

Like the man said, several times: oy vey.