Fallout

In the most gripping (and frequently gruelling) issue-based play since Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange, Roy Williams digs forensically beneath the scene of a young black man's murder in Fallout to uncover both how and why he died.

Constructed as a detective story in which two policemen (like the two psychiatrists of Blue/Orange) are at loggerheads over their different views on how to solve the case, the play provides a searing and bleak account of the sexual and social rivalries that lead to murder amongst a group of London street kids.

Like Kwame Kwei-Armah recently did in his National Theatre play Elmina's Kitchen, Williams has turned a critical eye on his own community for a play that not only comes from the heart but also goes to the heart of how violence both underpins and undermines it. He also springs some dark and compelling surprises along the way: it's the black PC (a riveting Lennie James) who is both more suspicious and disillusioned of these kids than the white PC (Daniel Ryan), who has a far more compassionate approach.

In a series of taut, tight scenes that move from the café where the group hangs out to the streets and police interview room, Ian Rickson's production has a propulsive intensity that is utterly compelling and sometimes chilling. Staged in a completely reconfigured Royal Court in Ultz's design, with the audience on four sides of a platform that has been built out over the stalls, the action is brought up close and personal so that it is as unsettling as it is disorientating.

Written in a muscular urban vernacular, it's also spectacularly well acted by an ensemble cast who so utterly inhabit their roles that they seem to come from the streets rather than acting schools. As the rivalries erupt again between Emile (by turns aggressive and defensive in Marcel McCalla's amazing performance) and Dwayne (Michael Obiora) over the affections of Shanice (Ony Uhiara), you are on the edge of your seat as to how it will play out.

- Mark Shenton