A packed Filofax and high finance dominate the existence of Tony, whose inner world is as repressed as his daily life is structured. That is until he meets ballsy, blonde Bella in a lift. Their brief but bilious encounter, in which our punk heroine breaks her Walkman, allows her to enter the yuppie world of Tony and his friends to expose their shallowness, materialism and unhappiness.

Implausible, outrageous and highly enjoyable, Rick Friend’s first full-length play – a social satire of ‘80s bright young things, is a riot of hilarious if unlikely incident. Astride Tony’s grey-suited knee, the black-eyed, leather-clad Bella engineers deals with world-famous financiers, while the play’s climax – a dinner party – has the sensible Sloane Claire all a-twitter with revelations of sexual repression as her boyfriend Trevor, an overgrown, overpaid ex-hippy drools at Bella’s every pearl of wisdom. This is a zappy debut, which marks Friend as a writer of some punch.