You feel like you are eavesdropping on a conversation at the table next to you - it is utterly compelling and its resonance lingers long after you've left the theatre.

Three women, only ever in pairs, meet in a Dublin cafe for a coffee and a catch-up - not the most magnetic sounding set up on paper but Mark O'Rowe's play, The Approach, is slowly gripping.

Cora (Cathy Belton), Anna (Aisling O’Sullivan) and her sister Denise (Derbhle Crotty) are all friends or least they were really close once.
The years pass all too quickly, things happen - life happens - and now they don’t see as much of each other.

When each pair meets their conversations start with everyday anodyne chit-chat but soon turn to more deeper personal topics such as relationships.

You have to listen carefully for clues as to how much time has passed between meetings - usually marked by relationship statuses.

A particular romantic gesture is a recurring motif and a signifier that something isn't quite straight in what the women are saying.