As names of plays go Bomber's Moon is pretty much perfect, as it's two characters both have moments of brutal verbal attack and exposed vulnerability.

Set in an anonymous care home we meet cantankerous Jimmy (James Bolam) who had us in stitches within ten seconds thanks to the English propensity for finding pensioners who swear and use the c word wildly funny.

Enter Steve John Shepherd as his painfully-raw Catholic carer David, who has not started well, feeding porridge to a dead woman and quickly earning looks of pure scorn from Jimmy.

Enfield Independent:

Shepherd's nervous pinching of his elbow skin and holding of his face were spot on as his character David flapped around the sedentary but verbally animated Jimmy. Their chalk and cheese relationship was made all the more wonderful by a later role reversal where he transforms into a cooly sexy figure from Jimmy's youth, all cigarette paper licking and it'll all be OK attitude.

With Jimmy recounting being the perils of being a rear gunner, the horribly realities of a crumbling body, mental breakdown and religion, you might think we'd all be thoroughly depressed by the end. But this is where the play excelled.

William Ivory's brilliant writing, combined with the perfect comic timing of Bolam and Shepherd, kept the laughs coming even when David was describing his suicide attempt.

But there were also moments of pure poetry, such as Jimmy describing his last fateful mission and falling down through the night sky, huddled silently, not being able to scream "like a frightened child under the covers" and him lamenting on his condition 'not this, not old, not old'.

In contrast the flashback scenes were awkward and he just looked daft waving around his walking frame in strobe lighting.

Enfield Independent:

There were also times when I felt Ivory tried a little too hard to make his point about faith being about more than just religion and the crispness shown in his comedy was lost.

Having said that the moments where the character's masks, Jimmy's mouthy aggression and David's religious devotion, slip away were wonderfully written and acted and the subtle twist in the tale provided one of the sweetest dance scenes I have ever seen on stage.

Bomber's Moon runs until May 11 at Park Theatre