JOHN Godber brought real sports to the theatre, Rugby League in Up'n'Under, and judo in Blood Sweat And Tears, and gave them a newly choreographed clout on stage.

For his 50th play, after a run of adult dramas, writer-director Godber returns to his early canvas of physical theatre and comedy in combat, but he hits the ropes in the wrestling ring. The youthful energy and innovation have gone, and his choice of sport is problematic because wrestling is already a theatrical pantomime. Unlike Rugby League and judo, sticking it on a stage does not give it a new dimension.

"Is it real? Is it fake? The trick is to keep you guessing," his grumpy mouthpiece says part way through the second half, in what turns out to be a wrestling match between Godber's love of honest bread-and-butter theatre and grumpy old distaste for the empty new world of overpriced stadia entertainment, reality shows and obsession with celebrity.

You sense Godber may have started out with one play - the one described in the brochure with the title Wrestling Mania and the heartening story of two losers in love finding themselves and winning back their partners through taking up wrestling - and ended up with his own political agenda taking over.

Jeff (Matthew Booth) and Jack (big Jack Brady) are a pair of jobbing actors sacrificing themselves on the altar of a rock musical version of Dracula, eating Chinese and living like slobs in their flat. Carrie (Hollyoaks's Kate Baines) has quit on Jeff; Jack has a PhD in German expressionist theatre going to waste and waist.

Their stark choice is supply teaching or...wrestling and the world of Amy Thompson's all-smiling Scouse ring announcer. Alas the wrestling scenes never spark. Baines and Thompson don masks to deliver cautionary monologues, but these ghosts of entertainment's soulless future lack a haunting impact; so Wrestling Mad only pins you to the floor when Jack turns into wrestling baddie The Doctor and abuses the audience with his dyspeptic oratory outbursts on behalf of Dr Godber.

Godber is out of humour and out of puff.

Wrestling Mad, Hull Truck Theatre, Hull, until July 30. Box office: 01482 323638

Updated: 11:08 Tuesday, July 19, 2005