"Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons" by Sam Steiner.

Nottingham Lace Market Theatre.

If the title of this play isn't enough to draw your attention to it, the story that the play tells certainly will. And by the way, it's got nothing to do with citrus fruit!

The average person will speak 123,205,750 words in a lifetime. But what if there were a limit? Oliver and Bernadette, the two characters in this play are about to find out as they attempt to build and navigate a new relationship under the threat of the ‘Quietude Bill’, a government ruling that limits words to 140 a day.. The play imagines a world where we're forced to say less. It's about what we say and how we say it.

Oliver (Jake Turner) and Bernadette (Lara Drew), are your typical slightly mismatched couple: They met at a Pet Crematorium at the event of a deceased cat, where Oliver mistook Bernadette for the deceased cat's owner. He’s an idealistic musician, she’s a sensible lawyer; he thinks she’s too careerist, but she reckons he’s just insecure because she earns more than him.

The play raises some fascinating questions about how we communicate with each other and the way we use language.

Given the subject matter, the spaces and silences between the spoken words carry just as much weight as the words themselves, and this comes across very effectively. I am sure that it was Harold Pinter who commented on how gaps and silences in a play can say as much as what words can, and in this production you get what he means.

It's ironic that a piece of theatre, which normally relies on multitudes of words to tell the story, is about a law to limit the words used in everyday life. Each day the couple meet up after work and let the other know how many words they have left for their daily ration. The action flips back and forth between the passed law and prior to the law, as well as recollections from Oliver about the protests against the law being proposed. They relate how their days went, the possible problems of having children brought into such an Orwellian world, families, their bedroom activities as well as creating a language that shortens words which should be able to allow them to get more meaning into their limited conversation brought about by the action of "The Hush".

This production is set in the Studio Theatre, which is the upstairs performance space, and makes for a more intimate  surrounding, creating that "fly on the wall" feeling, and you also get to see the full emotional impact on Oliver and Bernadette.

Both Jake and Lara have wonderful chemistry; all you have to do is watch their eyes as they look at each other, whether that be in the "courting" stages or during their arguments, and what I also liked was the joy they showed after their bows as they hugged each other, knowing that what they had done in the previous ninety minutes or so had been a big success, and appreciated by the packed studio.

Directed by Nicole Driver, the action is set over a given period where each situation and scene is given by a single piano chord; some of the scenes last just a matter of seconds. The spaces don't last that long, but timed perfectly to create anticipation of what comes next verbally. There's a lot of comedy in the play which bounces nicely from actor to actor, giving variety and contrast to the pace of the play.

There is no need for any kind of set, which, when you think about it, is absolutely right because this production is all about words, and by having no set straight away makes you concentrate on the words, and what, and how those words are said.

This is another one of those plays that will give you plenty of food for thought, and conversation and debate time after the play has finished.

"Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons" runs until Saturday 8 March, but all shows are sold out.