All bottled up

Dave wants to be Cock, the most respected and feared boy in his year. His mum is a depressive and his dad he can only describe, repeatedly, with a four-letter word beginning with C.

Lauren, meanwhile, is an eternal misfit, tired of being the good girl at school and of the pressure from her aspiring parents. Dave discovers Lauren mid-suicide attempt and it's this that pushes the two into a secret friendship. He teaches her life can be a rush: she calms him down a little. Simon Burt's play sounds predictable, and indeed it is.

But the quality is in the detail, in the sweet, expletive-ridden dialogue and in the atmosphere of innocent discovery that hangs over these otherwise dysfunctional teens.

There is quality, too, in Burt's perceptive handling of Mr Richmond, the enlightened teacher whose interventionism never does anyone any good.

But it can be sentimental. Every now and again, a line rings hollow and the ending seems over-optimistic. You sense that Burt might love his characters a little too much, even the foolish Richmond, played with beautiful inefficacy by Jeff Rawle, gets some reward for his kind, misguided heart.

But rose-tinted specs never hurt anyone and the excellent performances of both Mikey North and Jessica Harris (pictured) as the two cracked teens mean you can't begrudge them their small blessings.

Bottle Universe