THERE’S NOTHING QUITE like being holed in an uncomfortable situation, for an indefinite period, with a colleague you barely know for an ice-breaker to manifest. This is what happens when Maureen from HR (Caroline Midgley) comes to deliver a message to her IT colleague, Barry (Gavin Werner) in Spanish Steps, at Theatre on the Square in Sandton, until 24 February.

Building on very old tropes that have seen murder mysteries develop under the pen of writers of the ilk of Agatha Christie, this charming play doesn’t promise to break new ground theatrically. But in doing so, and in focusing on what it is about, it offers powerful and delightful insights into human dynamics, and the kind of soil where love might take root and actually flourish.

On the one hand, it’s a tale, which like that in Michelle Douglas’s play Home Affairs, which featured at this theatre last year, enables both protagonists to tell their story, and in fact, the one story is an inversion of the other. It’s about humanity roughly being on the different sides of the same coin, if only we are to look.

On the other hand, it’s a story of absent fathers, or fathers who don’t often get to spread their personal wings, because of being inveigled into domestic responsibilities too young, or for whatever other reason. It’s about loss and making peace but also about seeing more than just superficial detail.

More than all of this, Spanish Steps it’s a bubbly and highly watchable piece of writing that suffers no plateaux in its telling. With a bit of the romance of freelance portrait artists in Rome and a lot of prickly office politics and pretences, it’s a lovely real work, which will keep you focused and laughing throughout.

• Spanish Steps is written by Gavin Werner and directed by Caroline Midgley. It is produced by Daphne Kuhn, stage managed by Regina Dube assisted by Melidah Thakadu and technically managed by Loftus Mohale assisted by Reggie Mathebe and performed by Dianne Simpson and Gavin Werner at Theatre on the Square in Sandton, until 24 February 2024.