J.M. Barrie certainly had a thing for otherworldly innocents. There was, of course, Peter Pan and in Dear Brutus, which adaptor/director Stephanie Sinclaire has rather choppily turned into The Shadowmaster, another ethereal young thing skips about imbued with the wisdom of the ages.

Yet before we get to the pleasingly topsy-turvy second-act shenanigans in a magical wood straight out of A Midsummer Night's Dream, we have to sit through a tedious amount of sub-Agatha Christie country house scene-setting. A body in the library would be a welcome relief.

Ours is not to question why six seemingly reasonable people think it a good idea to turn up for a weekend at the invitation of an unknown host, but there they are, all missed opportunities, romantic frustrations and frantic overacting.

The tiny stage, house one side and garden the other, is delightfully designed by Georgia Lowe and once everyone stops flitting through the fabric-draped exits in a whirl of short scenes the whole thing settles down agreeably. "I can't believe I'm not a great romantic after all. I'm just a s***," says Jack the cad, finally showing a pleasing degree of self-knowledge.

Shadowmaster, until 7 September (0870 890 0149), www.kingsheadtheatre.org