A Carpet, a Pony and a Monkey, Bush Theatre, London

Over and over, we think it's all over

Football – specifically, the England-Germany match two years ago in Belgium – provides the background but not the subject for Mike Packer's comedy. Nor is the play about gambling, though two of its four characters are poker-playing ticket touts (the title is gambling argot for "three, 25 and 500"). Both are mere pretexts for the sport that is Baz's lifeblood. His first words in his Brussels hotel room are a mobile-phone call to his wife, purportedly from his ailing father's bedside. (Baz cannot tell her where he is or why: he is on the verge of bankruptcy.) Later, he pleads, in an injured tone, for just a little faith, though I can't blame Mrs Baz for not being convinced by the line, "Haven't I told you I'd never lie to you again?"

Bluffing not only his wife but his creditors and the thuggish but naive Tosser, who deals with the rough end of the market, is Baz's game, and if there were a liars' Olympics, he would come home with a gold-covered chest. But, though Baz is the most frequent and skilful liar in the play, he has plenty of company. A black football player ("I'm not just up here for the money") says he's "in love" with his shiny blonde girlfriend. Soon after, he is saying, "I'll never do it again." Meanwhile, she is on her mobile to her husband back in England, her voice tiny and sad as she describes her grandmother's funeral.

Much of it is quite funny, though the laughs depend a lot on the skills of the performers in Mike Bradwell's production. With his woeful unmade bed of a face, Philip Jackson need do little to support his tall stories, and wisely does it. Even when he joins Tosser in football cheers and taunts, he retains a sympathy-inspiring quality of detachment and regret. As his younger sidekick, Nicolas Tennant keeps us aware of the vulnerability behind Tosser's delight in his canny, slimy ways, smiling at the thought of "going down dark alleys with Scousers in a foreign... [pause] fuckin'... [pause] land."

Whenever Lucy Punch, as the bimbo, appears, one is nearly blinded by the radiance of her self-belief, venality and teeth. At one point, Baz refuses to go along with her plan; puzzled, she stares at him for a moment, then repeats the offer in a slightly brighter tone, like an actress unsure of how to respond to a director's call for a retake.

More amusement is needed than is available here to sustain a play whose characters are thin, familiar and unsympathetic. The overstretched plot lacks suspense, and the one astonishing revelation is more a betrayal of the audience, for it makes a nonsense of what has preceded it. Such limits and awkwardness make it unsurprising that Packer has difficulty in finding an ending for his play. More than once before he does, we mistakenly think it's all over.

To 15 June (020-7610 4224)