Flesh and Bone
Soho Theatre, London

IF THE current predominance of public school-educated actors grates and you fret that working-class voices are being lost, and if that deters you from going to the theatre, Flesh and Bone is for you.

Set on an East End council estate, there’s a whiff of Shameless about it but as if directed by Steven Berkoff. Here, it’s actors Elliot Warren and Olivia Brady who direct, with Warren also writing the piece. The language is certainly Shakespearean — or at least Shakespeare-ish — yet just as the torrent of words starts to swirl into purple prose, it takes a dodgy swerve into in-yer-face Cockerney.

At the outset the five characters may seem stereotypical, with geezer Terrence (Warren) constantly up for a fight — he must have strutted from his mother’s womb. Girlfriend Kelly (Brady), a doe-eyed hard case, is a survivor who yearns for the high life, or at least a meal at Prezzo once in a blue moon.