NICK Lane knew he was in line to direct Two this spring at York Theatre Royal as long ago as last September.

At no stage was he tempted to see Jim Cartwright's pub drama elsewhere in the intervening months.

"It's a piece I've never seen and I kept it that way," says Nick, who was sure Two was made to measure for The Studio. "This is the perfect play for the Studio space; I think it lends itself to a pub setting," he says.

In Two, Cartwright presents a series of short vignettes that depict the humour and the misery of everyday life for 14 characters in a northern pub run by bickering landlords. Eamonn Fleming and Gilly Tompkins play all the roles between them.

"Two is an actor's piece. Cartwright embraced minimalism in Road and Bed, and again with Two you know there's someone here who's really interested in the voice rather than cup-of-tea acting." Nick says.

"It's real, though you could argue that it's a showpiece for actors in that it doesn't have a linear narrative structure and each scene doesn't necessarily inform the plot, but has scenes and monologues and sketches, some comic, some tragic, some surreal, some with pathos."

Two takes the form of thumbnail observations, where all manner of life is there, but the drinkers do not all interconnect, in contrast to so many British soap opera scenes.

"The feel of it is almost of someone going around with a microphone and recording conversations, although Cartwright heightens language, and so sometimes it's naturalistic but at other times it's surreal.

"It's not an original concept to depict life in a pub but he gives it a northern spin and attempts to poeticise lives that would otherwise be passed by: the life of the ordinary man and woman," says Nick.

"If you like, the pub is the third character, alongside the landlord and landlady. The pub is the eyes and the ears of the piece, and what we've done with the design is make everything off-kilter because there's something not quite right about all the relationships."

Two, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, pulling pints until the beer stops flowing on June 17. Box office: 01904 623568.