IT is not every day that a Theatre Royal drinks voucher is stamped Whisky Galore. What an invitation, especially when a wee dram is the least you need after this disappointingly weak drama about the canny islanders of Great Todday and Little Todday finding ways to stop the wartime authorities from reclaiming 50,000 bottles of washed up on their Hebridean shores.

Fondly remembered for the 1949 Ealing comedy film, Compton Mackenzie's 1947 novel has been newly adapted by Philip Goulding as a kind of Whisky Gal-Ore, an all-female version set in 1955, when the Pallas Players act out McKenzie's true story from 1941.

The effect of the two timelines is confusing and distancing, the farcical comedy style is out of date and feels forced, and too little is made of a cast of seven having to play 26 characters between them in a story of whisky, warring families, wedding matches and England versus Scotland clashes.

Goulding is both marking the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote and recalling the travelling theatre troupes of yore, in particular the Osiris Players. All of which is well intentioned and warm hearted, but not much other than the heart is in the right place in Kevin Shaw's convoluted, if convivial co-production for the Oldham Coliseum/Hull Truck Theatre/New Vic Theatre.

The script is too wordy, the comedic pace too slow, the shipwreck needs to come much sooner; and the performances are hit and miss, Christine Mackie being the pick of them in seven roles.

Patrick Connellan's set design of boxes on wheels that transform into ships, a rowing boat, a bumpy car ride and more besides has the wit lacking elsewhere, but it is a bad day at the theatre when the stage furniture receives the highest praise.

Whisky Galore runs at York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee, and Hull Truck Theatre, Hull, May 2 to 12. Box office: York, 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk