HOW do you find the father who disappeared when you were seven years old?

Londoner Gabriel Law only has a handful of clues. A string of picture postcards sent from the Australian outback. A newspaper cutting about an Englishman who climbed Ayers Rock and disappeared. And his mother’s stony silence.

Gabriel’s dad, Henry, haunts this play - by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell.

Written in 2008, When the Rain Stops Falling is a story about how one father's actions have consequences - and how we can never truly understand the past.

It’s not a play for the faint-hearted. The action ricochets between London in the 1950s and 1980s to Australia in the 1980s, 2013 and apocalyptic 2030s. And characters walk into each other's scenes.

Like an onion, there are layers to this play.

Slowly, it’s revealed that Henry Law - Gabriel’s father - is a child abuser. He returns to his wife one night with a split cheek, after three men assault him in the park. And, finally, his distraught wife confronts him after finding a cache of sickening photographs stashed above a wardrobe.

The revelation of the abuse is shocking. But it's not the focus of the play. Instead, it's about parents - and their impact on their children.

“They’re cruel, aren’t they, parents," says character Gabrielle York, whose mother killed herself when Gabrielle was barely out of nursery.

If you’re still brushing off the sequins after seeing Australian classic Priscilla: Queen of the Desert at the Arts Centre last month, this play might not be for you.

But if you want a difficult play that you’re unlikely to see in the bigger theatres, this could be your thing.

Performed in the cramped Shoebox Theatre, the surroundings help make the play feel even more uncomfortable. Stand-out performances come from amateurs Ben Thomas as the conflicted child-abuser Henry Law and David Thompson as Henry’s bile-bitten grandson.

When the Rain Stops Falling is at the Shoebox Theatre, Theatre Square until Saturday July 8, 7:30pm. Tickets cost £10.