Faces In The Crowd *** TNT

A transformative design turns the theatre’s smaller studio space into 44-year-old Dave’s minimalist, one-bedroom Shoreditch flat in Leo Butler’s intense two-hander. The stage becomes a cross between a floor plan and a real apartment – solid external walls enclose the set, but the internal partitions are taped lines on the floor, the doors merely frames. Peering uncomfortably over the parapet, the audience becomes voyeurs as Dave and his estranged wife Joanne tear each other and themselves to emotional, recriminatory bits.

Initially, the nature of the transaction which is about to unfold is ambiguous – though sex is undoubtedly in the air. Once their relationship becomes clear – he walked out on her, Sheffield and their debts a decade ago, she’s tracked him down and wants him to father a baby – Butler tries too hard to forge links between their current predicament and the legacy of capitalist Britain.

But, as insults are hurled and festering hurts come painfully to the surface the actors are faultless. Amanda Drew as Joanne (her biological clock ticking deafeningly as she nears her 40th birthday) and Con O’Neill as Dave (with his unseen young girlfriend, plasma screen and recipes from the Guardian) give brave, bare, no-holds barred performances which draw you, briefly, into their unfulfilled lives.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1 (020-7565 5000). Until November 8. £10-£15