JANE COYLEreviews This Other Cityat the Grand Opera House, Belfast

IN DARAGH Carville's new play for Tinderbox, the troubled past has no place. All eyes are on the Belfast of today. Patrick and Gemma represent the city's new upwardly mobile generation of 40-somethings. Attractive, successful, blessed with a sparky teenage daughter, thriving social life and every material thing money can buy, they are living smugly on the pig's back.

Patrick has married well and slid neatly into an executive position in the property empire built by his father-in-law. All this, plus, as he keeps reminding us, he is a good man.

But Patrick harbours a dirty little secret that will be the undoing of him, his family and a young girl from a far-off country.

Carville sees this emerging city as no worse - or better - than any other 21st-century urban sprawl. Greed, lust and corruption form the mud on which it is built and not even so-called Christian values can prevent the flourishing of a new kind of slave trade: human trafficking.

This bleak picture is painstakingly directed by Michael Duke and played out by a strong cast in Niall Rea's übermodern set.

Miche Doherty's softly spoken Patrick starts out relaxed and self-deluded, his suit becoming more crumpled as his arguments fall apart, while Maria Connolly's highly strung Gemma is stretched to breaking point as the horror of her domestic situation dawns.

The twin themes of marital disintegration and sexual exploitation kick off slowly but tantalisingly, yet do not expand into the depth and complexity they promise. As it is, Michael Liebmann's sleazy pimp, Bull, and Cristina Catalina's quietly desperate Maria give strong hints of a compelling story waiting to be given full rein.

Until May 14, then on tour