Darren is a little fish in a pond full of sharks. Out of his depth, he soon finds himself caught between mad HIV-positive Lanky who has injected a little girl with his "dirty works" and local tough man, Tommo. "I fear for your souls," says one of the characters in Jamie Linley's slice of low-life drama. I have to say I feared for my own sanity watching this story of revenge and murder set among a group of drug-addicts and dealers on the fringes of London.
It is not the sheer, foul-mouthed nastiness of the play that irritates - after all the Royal Court Theatre in London offers plenty of foul-mouthed nastiness - it is the sheer incompetence of the writing and the staging, as well as the bare-faced cheek that they expect people to pay money for this. I think that Linley has been reading too many Philip Ridley plays and mistakenly thought he could do better. He can't.
Dirty Works has the tension of old knicker elastic and it doesn't even tell a simple - and potentially interesting - story with clarity or drive. Only for the drug-addled.
· Until Aug 27. Box office: 0870 745 3083
