Teenager Patsy "borrowed" a baby and took it to school stuffed in her bag. Brendan unzips his trousers and waves his penis about at every opportunity. Lanny has a temper that gets him into trouble. And new girl Jay? Well, she's a quiet one. Still they are nothing like as mixed up as the teachers, particularly the head, Tom Marshall, a man suffering a middle aged marital crisis and a crisis of faith in his profession. It is lucky that English teacher Maggie is around, a woman whose unconventional methods include a little bribery and corruption for the greater or sometimes individual good, and who clearly get results, and sometimes the affection of her pupils.
It is no surprise that Richard Davidson's play, set in a referral unit for children excluded from mainstream school, looks and sounds like a gritty version of Grange Hill or EastEnders. Davidson is a scriptwriter on the latter. But although Badnuff is rough around the edges, overloaded with plot and sometimes seeming like another slice of naturalism trying to pass itself off as something more, it also has a spark. The writing fizzes and the issues are dealt with in a way that has shades of both David Mamet's Oleanna and Rebecca Gilmore's Spinning into Butter.
It also has a really sizzling production from Jonathan Lloyd in which the energetic mouthy anarchy of the kids (a quartet of very good and distinctively different performances) are offset by the quiet, troubled relationship of David Harewood's rage- fuelled Tom and Raquel Cassidy's inspirational Maggie. Badnuff may not be great drama, but it is an enjoyable one that has a ring of truth and it is good enough to deserve its place on this stage.
· Until April 17. Box office: 020 7478 0100
