American screen stars, bank balances bulging – but still after something called kudos or critical acclaim – come over to little old England to do theatre. And the role they most like to play here is the kind of brash, contemptibly mercenary vulgarian who flourishes in Hollywood. Christian Slater did it in Swimming with Sharks; now Jeff Goldblum is doing it in Speed-the-Plow. Our audiences love it, as it demonstrates our cultural superiority, while the American stars, now actors, get their acclaim. Hollywood made them rich enough to fly here first class to portray Hollywood as a Babylon of corruption and greed. Odd, isn’t it?

Still, I’m glad Goldblum made it over. His performance as Bobby Gould,studio head of production, is a delight, full of strange, inexplicable little tics and mannerisms. He does soft-shoe shuffles at inappropriate moments, hitches his slim-line trousers up a little too high with his hands in his pockets, grins fanatically when nothing is funny. His drainpipe suit reveals a physique so fantastically lean and gangly that, were he female, there would be speculation in the tabloids about an eating disorder.

Kevin Spacey, as Charlie Fox, offers a rather obvious contrast, saggy, baggy and forlorn in a linen jacket, brown trousers and beige socks that don’t quite go. But, like all incipient failures, he is bubbling with suppressed rage – when it finally, spectacularly erupts, you worry he is about to pop a ventricle right there on the Old Vic stage.

Praise is due, too, for Rob Howell’s gorgeous sets. Gould’s plush office is expensively high-tech, with curvy walls, soft spotlighting and a big, minimalist chrome desk. Yet it’s simultaneously messy and bleak, with stepladders and stacks of cardboard boxes against the walls. This is a work space that has had money lavished on it, but no care. As such, it is a perfect visual analogy for Hollywood products at their trashiest.

If only the play were as good. But those of us who have long since developed a strong immunity to the charms of David Mamet, finding him one of the most overrated of all contemporary playwrights, will have our immunity strengthened further by exposure to this tiresome piece. The plot is absurdly schematic. The struggling Fox has got hold of a movie project that is total trash, but a sure-fire box-office hit. Will his old pal Gould green-light it? Yes, he will. They’re gonna be rich!

That night, though, Gould has a long, deep talk with his idealistic young secretary, Karen. She tells him the project is “degrading to the human spirit”, and that, instead, he should go for artistic integrity with a film based on a book she has been reading about radiation, the end of the world and redemption. It sounds like the most rambling, portentous adolescent drivel, about as likely to get asses on seats as Heaven’s Gate. In a trice, though, Gould has undergone a Dama-scene conversion, confessing “I’ve wasted my life. My life is a sham”, and agreeing with Karen that the art project must go ahead.

Implausible doesn’t quite do this justice. Laura Michelle Kelly tries valiantly with Karen, but, as usual with Mamet’s women, her character remains steadfastly inert. His portrayal of maleness is equally unrecognisable. These men are frantically ambitious, insecure, exaggerated, narrow and treated with mocking misanthropy.

The difficulty of delivering Mamet’s rapid-fire lines is not to be underestimated, and both Goldblum and Spacey display virtuoso skill in doing so. For all that effort, though, boredom sets in.

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