It’s William’s birthday, and his adult children are arriving to mark the occasion. William (Gerard Murphy) and his wife, who has died after a long illness, set up and ran a highly lucrative travel business in Stratford-upon-Avon. But William has now left the town, which he plainly regards as a tourist-infested dump: “God, have I invented it,” he growls, “or were there really mouth organs inscribed ‘If music be the food of love, play on’?” This is pretty rich, coming from a man who has made his money from the travel industry, and whose grandfather actually ran a shop selling tourist souvenirs.

Hypocrisy is by no means William’s only unpleasant characteristic, and his children are little better. All are after their father’s money. First to arrive is Tom (Chris Kelham), who wants a cool £3m to set up his own business. Next there’s sharp-voiced Jane (Tessa Churchard), who needs cash to despatch her twins to private school. William suggests sending them to the local comprehensive. “But it’s huge,” Jane snaps, “And they’ll come back with such dreadful accents.” Then there’s ambitious Kate (Anna O’Grady), and finally there’s Hugo (Tom Berish). Hugo is an environmental campaigner, and bitterly dismissive of the rest of his family. The only pleasant person around seems to be Solomon (Ben Onwukwe): quietly gay, he was first employed to nurse William’s wife, but has stayed on to look after William himself.

The birthday champagne opened, William has a number of bombshells to unleash on his quarrelsome family, and playwright Julian Mitchell (perhaps best known for Another Country) uses them to highlight various issues: among others, they include homosexuality, global warming, greed, colour prejudice, and social status. The problem is that Mitchell doesn’t have anything very new or involving to say about these issues, and, with one notable exception, he is content to leave his characters as stereotypes, giving the actors little opportunity to develop their roles.

The exception is Hugo, the environmental campaigner, and only member of the family who isn’t self-centred. At first Hugo appears to be entirely humourless, and fails to understand that hectoring others is not the best way to get his points across. But he blossoms into a really effective character.

Family Business is not, I fear, a memorable play that will stand the test of time. And it leaves one vital issue untouched: how on earth did William get planning permission to build a hideous modern house in glorious open countryside, as Ruari Murchison’s set design suggests?

Until Saturday. Tickets: 01865 305305 or www.oxfordplayhouse.com