AS Dave Sheasby's play Trimming Pablo recalls, on November 13, 1950, the 20th century's most famous artist arrived at a wet Sheffield train station, beret on his balding head, bouquet of chrysanthemums in his hand.

Pablo Picasso, 68, had moved from his Blue period to Red Commie politico and was in the steel city to address the second World Peace Congress in the City Hall.

This was the night he drew his dove of peace and said, in Spanish, "I stand with life against death for peace against war." Three days later, the UN Assembly rejected a Soviet proposal to ban all nuclear weapons, and the Cold War had officially begun.

Coldness of a different kind had impacted on the life of Dave Sheasby, a ten-year-old schoolboy. His frosty teacher, Ma Parker, she of the "winter heart", had not told him Picasso was coming to town. In fact, no one told him; his family didn't know; his akela ignored it. Years later, Sheasby researched what happened that November, both on Picasso's day out in Sheffield and in Sheasby's schoolboy world.

The result is Trimming Pablo, a Cubist comedy of myth and truth, dramatic invention and archive material, interview and soundtrack music by the Brodsky Quartet's Jacqueline Thomas. On stage is that South Yorkshire master exponent of the one-man play, Fine Time Fontayne, plus a Cubist, multi-headed cut-out of Picasso that doubles up as a hat stand, and a guitar and keyboard for Fine Time's detours into song. There is an easel too, for Fine Time to stretch his impersonation skills to drawing Picasso's famous dove.

With storytelling lan, a mischievous glint and chameleon physicality, he plays all manner of men and one woman of the night who may or may not have come into contact with Picasso that day, from a Scottish waiter to a Welshman from MI5 to an American CIA operative.

Sheffield characters pop up too, not least the barber who trimmed Pablo's hair, and through it all, the writer reflects wistfully on the outsider status of the artist, be it Picasso or Sheasby's fellow school pupil, Barry Jackson. Fascinating play, superb performance, Trimming Pablo is a cut above.

Updated: 10:23 Wednesday, February 23, 2005