The lights go up on Pure Gold to reveal a council flat in a high-rise. For a few dread moments, memories of the Royal Court's late and unlamented strand of tower block plays resurface.
These pieces, bleak to the core, offered a lethal cocktail of alienation, crime and family breakdown. Playwright Michael Bhim is, mercifully, having none of this. His theme is less sensationalist but far more rewarding: the struggles of a hard-pressed family to get by in cash-fixated London.
This is the sort of satisfying domestic drama that Soho - here in a co-production with black theatre company Talawa - produces all too infrequently now.
Simon (Clarence Smith), who has lost his job as a bus driver, is frustrated by a lack of job opportunities; his wife Marsha has put her studies on hold for a job at the local supermarket. For Simon, the lure of easy money from the dubious business exploits of his cousin Paul is ever harder to resist.
The photo montage backdrop of the sparkling towers of Canary Wharf, easily visible from this Deptford window, provides a clever, ironic comment on all the wealth sloshing about while Simon and Marsha anguish over rent arrears.
Mark Monero imbues Paul with a dangerous amiability, while Golda Rosheuvel makes Marsha just the right combination of loyal and feisty. Indhu Rubasingham directs with conviction, as well she should with heartfelt material like this.
Pure Gold until 20 October (0870 429 6883, sohotheatre.com).
Pure Gold
Soho Theatre
Dean Street, W1D 3NE
