LIVE Aid. Record sales of Diana's Candle In The Wind single. Yet another Comic Relief day and night for Terry Wogan. Don't collective acts of charity make us feel better about ourselves?

Nick Lane, Yorkshire actor, director and skilled writer of stage adaptations for children and adults alike, was given carte blanche by Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden to write a play on any subject. He chose charity, inspired by his sister's fundraising work and by a charity ruse on the Kenyon Confronts show.

In his eighth play - and first original work - Lane takes a cautionary, caustically humorous look at the spiralling impact of charity in the media spotlight. Initially, charity begins at home when graphic designer Tom (Zach Lee) hatches a plan to pay off his debts and do up his girlfriend's car.

Ten years out of college - but physically looking somewhat older - Tom and best mate Bob (Eamonn Fleming) and Tom's fresher-faced actress girlfriend Julie (Beverley Denim) are labouring in debt, dead-end jobs and a shabby flat above a kebab shop in York. What could be easier than for Tom to create a little girl on his computer, set up the Derby McQueen charity, tell the world she is dying but not tell his flatmates the charity is fake.

Everything is hunky dory, the £2,000 target passed, until Dave Falconer (James Lauren), a Scottish freelance hack in the last-chance saloon, sees his opportunity to expose the truth or... turn the charity into a much bigger scam.

Radio, television and, by the end, even Parliament and the Prime Minister become involved, recalling all those charity hits of yore.

Lane is a gifted writer of crisp and crunchy dialogue and a canny sketcher of character in the vogue of his mentor John Godber, and his scenes follow the short, sharp, episodic mode of Godber too. Consequently, the door in Angela Simpson's design opens and shuts so often it takes on an erratic character of its own.

Doors often symbolise farce in theatre and sure enough, if incongruously, Lane gives us a brief Joe Orton moment, when Tom and Bob end up in a compromising position. That seemed too convoluted, whereas the multiple television screens and documentary-style statistics and dates bring contemporary zest to Tim Welton's direction.

Lane's tone is uneven, even quirky, with its fusion of Orton, The Young Ones' student clutter, pop culture references and Lane's own nonsense-shredding humour. Bubbling up underneath the comic surface is a theme of too much truth being damaging, in relationships as well as in the charity world.

Significantly, the show's soundtrack favours cover versions and remixes: a twist on an original. Likewise, Lane is still finding his own voice, so too this play and production, but his writing will blossom and flourish.

The Derby McQueen Affair, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, until July 10. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:32 Wednesday, June 23, 2004