Art may imitate life, and vice versa, but increasingly, virtual reality is informing both spheres. Engine 13’s Paperboy & Friends tries to make sense of the hyperactive dissonance of our times via the milieu of the video game. The four speaking actors aren’t as much characters as role-players in Shaun Dunne’s lively prose poem. There’s a couple falling in and out of love (Mairead Cumiskey and Rob Soohan), a young woman scarred by sexual assault (Roxanna Nic Liam), and the Paper Boy (Daithi Mac Suibhne) himself, who as both protagonist of the bygone Nintendo game and deliverer of news that is black, white and read all over, is woefully redundant in these digital times.

Mac Suibhne brings genuine charisma to the title role, but despite the energetic direction of Tara Robinson, Paper Boy never cuts as deep as intended. Video games may provide a trove of material – the play features levels, not acts, elliptical references to ‘the game’ and a projected 3D cityscape that is gradually constructed by virtual designer Neil Robinson - but the larger metaphor contained therein is never unlocked. Dunne is a talented writer fond of alliteration, but this paean to lost innocence would have benefitted from more grounding in the real world, whatever that is anymore.