Two boys are waiting outside the headmaster’s office of their boarding school. They are in trouble for climbing the chapel roof, and are awaiting their punishment from the principal, but they have no idea when that will be. They could have been there waiting in the day before, and they will probably be there again tomorrow. The echoes of Beckett and Waiting for Godot are many. On the cusp of adulthood, the boys are trapped by the arbitrary rules of school and the hoops they need to jump through, knocking the sense of adventure out of them before they get the freedom to enjoy it.

Ali, played by writer Alex Grech, is agitated and displays a range of obsessive behaviours: tying and retying his tie, taking his blazer on and off, and tossing a coin. He is bullied, keen to fit in, deeply concerned about the impression he is making, and focussed on the practical. Sid (Carson S. Davis) is calmer, more insouciant and confident, the romantic forever drifting off into adventure and different worlds. When he describes the adventure of a life at sea, Ali says that he could get good grades and become an engineer; Sid cuts him short. He’s missed the point.

The performances are well-drawn and sympathetic, capturing that time when adolescents are expected to behave like adults yet denied the responsibility to do so. The interplay between them is convincing and there is some great physical theatre, with a scene in which they fail to move some furniture emphasising their inability to alter their circumstances.

Crammed with philosophical ideas, repetitive behaviours and flights of fancy, Grech’s script is ambitious, but it is unclear if this is a rewriting of Waiting for Godot or a homage to it. At times the repetitions of Beckett’s characters and tropes become distracting. Is this character or scene appearing because it serves this story or because it happened in the parent work? The script tries too hard at times, becomes too clever for its own good. Like the teenage boys, it needs room to breathe and to establish its own identity. Let the story dictate the form rather than the other way round.