A troubled soul looks back in anguish

Playwright Duncan Macmillan, whose sparky young voice has not quite reached maturity, hones in on something familiar: the conversation in which words don't behave as they should, where meaning evaporates as soon as a sentence is finished.

The more Loretta speaks, be it to a policewoman or her teenage daughter, the less she manages to say. Which is why her interlocutors remain stubbornly silent, making this in essence a monologue with a cast of six.

The recent disappearance of some young girls has set Loretta reflecting on her own youth, when, as a 14-year-old, she lost her virginity to a man of 22. This consensual act caused no concern then, but hindsight is casting troubling shadows.

Holly de Jong powerfully portrays a woman losing herself in her own head, whose constant soliloquy of fear and selfjustification allows no space for ta sense of perspective. If De Jong occasionally pushes that tremble in her voice too far, it is because Macmillan saddles her with some awkwardly portentous moments, such as the nonsensical short scene involving a pregnant woman wandering around in a downpour. And that lobster metaphor is distinctly over-boiled.

Clare Lizzimore directs with verve, coaxing a telling turn from Jenny Maddox as Loretta's troubled daughter. We'll certainly be hearing more from this writer.

Until 19 March. Information: 020 7978 7040.

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