The Ghanaian matriarch at the heart of Levi David Addai’s new play isn’t quite as tyrannical as that of the Federico García Lorca play Addai’s title echoes. But there’s no doubt that she rules the roost over her two sons, dweeby favourite Caleb and his more feckless older brother Solomon.

Since she is about to return to Ghana, Agnes(Cecilia Noble, pictured) wants the boys to look after her treasured house. Unfortunately, she refuses to allow Solomon’s detested girlfriend Davinia to move in too, mainly out of jealousy at being replaced; as it is, Caleb and Solomon are constantly at each other’s throats.

Levi’s lively family comedy is about the struggle of teenagers to become men, and to wrestle their identity away from an adored but controlling mother. At the same time, both boys are negotiating the culture clash many second-generation immigrants face between their background and 21st-century Britain (Caleb can’t tell his mother he has a white girlfriend; Solomon lightly jibes him for having a ‘white’ city job).

Addai’s debut for the Royal Court, 93.2 FM, was a tighter, sharper piece of work; in contrast, this play’s central conflict is neither pushed towards crisis point nor achieves much resolution. Yet in George Perrin’s soft-centred but supremely well-acted production for Paines Plough, Addai displays again his remarkable talent for dialogue, and for creating characters with real problems rather than ones schematically imposed.

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