So many new plays posture at presenting a different London life to a (still) predominantly middle-class audience, but the typecasting of writers– this pressing need to find a distinctive, diverse and undiscovered voice – often ends up strangling the writing. All too often the characters sound like types and the stories like fables; for whilst these new plays might carry a message, they often drop their heart and authenticity in the process.

Yet the extraordinary thing about Debbie Tucker Green’s play Random – a one woman monologue that tracks a family ‘fold in itself’ after a brother and son is randomly killed on the street - is that she manages it. This is a different London, a different family but a deeply personal, powerful and convincing piece. Green’s play boasts a resounding performance from Seroca Davis (a real talent), alongside poetry that is truthful rather than symbolic, situations that are emotional but not sentimental and characters that are believable, flawed and unforgettable. 

Davis is a tiny slip of an actress, yet she easily commands this strange new space in the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, which is more store cupboard than theatre. She has an awful lot to do – the slightest of lighting is at her disposal and not much else – but Davis’ definitive delivery and Green’s poetry rises to the challenge imposed by this modest venue.

Davis is a startling chameleon of an actress and is extremely adept at making sure her body marks out the frequent character transitions required of her; she plays mother, brother, father, son and teacher. In fact, if Davis only had her eyes available, she’d still pull this play off; they are wide and hard when playing the younger sister, softer and more squinted when transforming into the mother and flinty but sparkling when the little brother squeezes onto stage. As for the dad – Davis only needs roll her eyes back and thrust her chin up high and this proud, silent man (‘stands good and straight, my man, like the good and straight man he is’) materialises.

Carefully considered physical gestures complete this delicate shift in characterisation; Davis becomes closed and sullen as the proud sister, loose and swaggering as the brother, hands on stomach as the calm and caring mother. Not only is it this a fine performance but these tiny shifts between brother and sister, father and son, also reinforce the idea of the fine lines that separate siblings and parents, as well as the unavoidable similarities that bind them together.

Davis is helped by an exceptionally poetic and sympathetic script from Tucker. This role could’ve been a bind – all awkward transactions and static shifts – but Tucker’s personal poetry lends each character a distinct voice, whilst still neatly weaving the story together. Tucker has a natural ear for poetry and, whilst she frequently finds elegant and distinctive images and turns of phrase (the bag containing the brother’s possessions becomes a ‘clear plastic bag of a conversation stopper’), she doesn’t overplay her words.

Instead, Tucker maturely lets the dialogue’s rhythm fill in large swathes of subtext. The silences say just as much as her sparkling imagery and the shifts in pace tell us things that words cannot. So – when the sister returns home to find two police officers in her house, the speech grinds to a slow and resentful pace, as the girl cynically surveys these unsympathetic police and their ‘learned civility’. A simple but bang on image conveys the police’s intrusive and threatening presence: ‘dark boots and heavy shoes in my house…’ And, when the police finally reveal the sinister reason behind their intrusion, the dialogue stutters to a stunned halt: ‘There is no – need – to - - rush.’

No word is wasted by Tucker, no eye flicker without intention from the impressive Davis. What a persuasive but delicate piece; a fine example of how to bring a (sometimes ignored) family blazing into life and make it roar right through the audience.

Till 27 March 2010