Adam & Paul

The pitiful plight of a couple of heroin-ravaged wasters is not the sort of subject to elicit an awful lot of sympathy.

But Mark O'Halloran and Tom Murphy invest rock-bottom losers Adam & Paul with a vulnerable charm despite their shaky grip on life's common decencies.

It's an appalling indictment of how addiction can strip out the moral fibre of two basically decent - if stupid - young men.

Things don't get onto a promising start when we first meet them - Adam has no recollection of why he is superglued to a mattress on a piece of wasteground.

Heading off to a sink estate, they fail to score a wrap and weave off into the city in a thankless, all-consuming search for a shot of skag.

As the day wears on, they run into a Bulgarian immigrant who they indignantly interrogate about his relocation to Eire.

"I had to leave Sofia," he explains. "Why, was she pregnant?" asks a touchingly naive Paul.

It takes a while to find the bleak wavelength inhabited by Adam & Paul but - once you're there - you feel compelled to stay.

There's comedy - when they act as incompetent look-outs during a garage raid. There's genuine poignancy - when they cradle a friend's baby left in a high-rise flat.

But there's also the harsh realities of a bare existence as an addict - the emotionless mugging of a Downs Syndrome boy down an alleyway.

It's a small, beautifully played drama, unflinching in its honesty about one of the worst curses of modern society.

Go and see it. You might be surprised how much you like it.

Tim Evans