Hangover Square - TNT

Fidelis Morgan's adaptation does an excellent job of distilling the essence of Patrick Hamilton' s dark 1941 novel – and designer Alex Marker more than matches her vision with an extraordinarily atmospheric transformation of this tiny space. Rain trickles down a sloping glass roof, a streetlamp nuzzles against the audience seating, and empty bottles clutter the ledges of dingy saloon bar, cheap Brighton hotel and sleazy lodging house as George Harvey Bone listens to the voices in his head telling him to kill failed actress Netta Longdon.

Set in Earls Court just before the outbreak of war,Gemma Fairlie's excellent production conjures a seedy world of drifting pointlessness in which the obsessed Bone hovers, humiliated, on the edge of her boozy crowd, an object of scorn who's always left to pick up the tab.The device of splitting the role of Netta between two actresses emphasises the turmoil in Bone's troubled brain and Matthew Flynn plays him with the dazed, desperate look of the borderline alcoholic, unable to distinguish between reality and his unfulfilled desires.

Finborough, Finborough Road, SW10. (0844-847 1652). Until August 2. Tickets £13 (£9 Tuesdays).