Francis, Charlie and Cupid play poker. Only you wouldn't exactly call them friends, because there is no such thing as friendship in poker. Are their lives beyond the table simply an extension of the game - or do they play the game the way they do because of their lives? What's clear is that nice normal Francis is one of life's losers, Charlie is a violent fantasist and Cupid, devious little Cupid with his face like a doll who has been fed razor blades, is the most reckless bluffer of them all and will stop at nothing to win. Cupid has no mercy and takes no prisoners: not Francis, Charlie's insecure sister Lily, or Francis's naive girlfriend Holly.
Is David Dipper's play, written last year when he was just 21, an amazing first play? I have to put my hand on my heart and say no - at least not if you look at it hard. It is too insubstantial, the scenario needs to be developed further and at 45 minutes, just when you are getting really obsessed with it, it stops. Still, it is rare that you come out of the theatre wanting more rather than wishing that there had been considerably less, and the writing has such a kick, the structure is so slippery and the scenario so twisted and compelling that I found myself leaning further and further forward on my seat. It is not nearly as accomplished as Gregory Burke's debut, Gagarin Way, the last first play to make me feel as overheated as this, but it does have the same electric surge of excitement.
This is a truly nasty piece of work and I mean that in the nicest possible way. The way that Dipper writes about the male of the species makes Patrick Marber's view of men (and poker) seem positively kind. And it is not just first-timer Dipper who comes up smelling of roses; newcomer Bijan Sheibani's production is skin tight, smart, tense and acted with a wired insouciance that kills you.
· Until May 8. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
