As a test for friendship loyalty, the premise for Three Feet Under is a doozy. One flatmate has come home to another standing over a blood-soaked body and holding a bloody knife. It’s clear their flat has been broken into – and they both know the victim.

These and many other crucial details – for which read assumptions, guesses and the odd accusation – emerge as Libby (Helen Vivienne Fletcher, who wrote and produced the play) and Jax (Ivana Palezevic) set about trying to bury the body in their raised-box back garden.

Jax is impulsive, quick-thinking and decisive, except when she’s not – e.g. gagging at the prospect of body fluids or having a panic attack. Libby, a nurse, is more attuned to coping in a crisis but more a flower than a leader when it comes to deciding what to do. The victim and/or perpetrator whose body they’re lumbered with, is/was Sammy, Libby’s cousin and Jax’s ex (as revealed in publicity and the programme). Ambivalence towards him prevails in both cases.

Jeopardy is a classic driver for good comedy and there is plenty of that in Fletcher’s ingeniously crafted script. The imperatives of needing to bury the body and cover their tracks take precedence over any measured assessment of what exactly has happened and who exactly did what, when and why. This throws the tropes of whodunnits and police procedurals into an energetic swirl of emotions which are always underpinned by Jax and Libby’s undying loyalty to each other, no matter what.

Simply designed by Jo Marsh and Caleb Havel (as required where the space is shared by another show starting 30 minutes after this one ends), the picket-fenced backyard is in suburbia with at least one neighbour close by. Emma Maguire’s lighting design includes a sensor light that blazes on cue to excellent effect.

Director Crystal Pulkowski and the actors have opted for the high-energy action more conducive to farce (although there are no asides to the audience; they are behind a fourth wall). This leads to extremely prejudicial information being exchanged at a volume neighbours or passers-by in the street would undoubtedly hear, which undermines the jeopardy factor. I can’t help wondering how the comedy might be heighted if Jax and Libby kept attempting to keep their voices down. The intimacy of Tapere Iti would certainly allow them to draw us into their terrible secret as they prioritise a ‘this is serious’ sensibility over ‘this is comedy’.

Fletcher’s script is cleverly crafted to keep changing gear as new understandings are reached, not least when Libby and Jax decide to stop being so subjective and approach their dilemma objectively. If they were detectives, what would they be looking for? And who will take the rap? The tests of friendship are ever-present as we, the objective observers who have come to care for them both by now, test our own moral standards against this volatile scenario.

As resolution seems near there’s a twist, then another – which of course you will have to see for yourselves. That it feels a bit rushed is due, I assume, to the need to keep the production within the allotted hour. Free of that restriction, the action could take more room to breathe, giving space to the stillness of the ‘get it’ moments that comedy thrives on.

That said, Palezevic and Fletcher inhabit their roles and navigate the Jax and Libby relationship with a fluency that belies the challenge they’ve met. The ‘Additional Voices and Characters’ played by Shaun Swain, Tom Kereama and Annica Lewis, and Jonathan Ensor’s tech operation all contribute to a commendable outcome.

Three Feet Under is well worth seeing and deserves to rise again.

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