Mike Leigh's play is set in a dingy bedsit in Kilburn in 1979. It was first performed in September of that year, but Leigh has revived it - and rather successfully.

For audience-goers over 50 they will remember those time; for others it is a piece of social history, when the rent is only £19 a week, a pay meter has to be fed coins otherwise the electricity goes out, a single electric fire is the only appliance that warms the room, and the bathroom is situated down the hall and is used by all the residents in the house.

The play opens with a girl lying naked on the top of the bed and a man is sitting on the edge with his back to the audience. Sex but not passionate or enjoyable has obviously just happened. The two people have little to say to each other. The atmosphere is uncomfortable as we watch Jean (Sian Brooke) and Roy (Daniel Coonan) get dressed and then Roy leaves without a kiss or acknowledgment.

Then, in walks Jean's friend Dawn (Sinead Matthews); as much as Jean's conversation is monosyllabic, Dawn talks 50 to the dozen. As her husband Mick (Allen Leech) later says "she has a mouth on her you can hear in Marble Arch", she's a lively red-head and full of energy, eagerly showing Jean the clothes she acquired during her 'shopping' trip or shoplifting trip - "You don't buy anything in C&A".

As the play progresses, a party takes place in the cleverly designed crampt little bedsit, and the four friends have a few drinks of gin and tonic and beer.

Mike Leigh interweaves the background and past lives of the characters. We learn how Mick, who is Irish, and his friend Len came to London to find work, both of whom are "not skilled but experience" otherwise as Mick says "I'd be sitting on my arse if I stayed in Cork."

Leigh has created a snapshot of a young northern woman in her 20s who came to London to find work and a new life but ended up being drenched in loneliness. She can't go out because she hasn't got a boyfriend. She works with 'Pakis' in a garage and finds relief from her sad life in a gin bottle.

The play is full of pathos, one moment I felt I was near to tears and the next I was laughing. This was all down to the impeccable timing of the cast and bringing Mike Leigh's brilliant words to life.

If there is one play you should see, this should be it.