Random - TNT

Although this new 50-minute play is performed by a single actor, it wouldn't be doing justice to either her or playwright Debbie Tucker Green to call it a monologue. There are four main characters (sister, brother, father, mother) plus a teacher, who are all brought to brilliantly differentiated life by Nadine Marshall. She stands alone on an ever-darkening stage and (with knife-edge precision) shifts tone, accent and posture to convey their conversations, thoughts and interactions during the course of one ill-fated day. What begins humorously with an ordinary black family getting up and having their breakfast (porridge, burnt) turns to devastating and needless tragedy, and Marshall's virtuosity — coupled with the streetwise immediacy of the spare, poetic language — brings an impressive immediacy to this modern story of the pointless knifing of a teenage schoolboy.
Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1 (020-7565 5000). Until April 12. £15-£10 (under 26s £5)