TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY Southwark Playhouse, Borough SE1

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO IN LONDON More than anything this is about atnosphere: Patrick Hamilton’s chronicle in three psychologcally vivid novels is distilled by Simon Reade into two-hours-ten and presented with the same sensitive ear and disciplined sharpness as this company – Troupe – brought to the superb Forsyte Saga. It’s about dreams , wanting to love, growing-up broke in a tough 1929 London: the inter-war period when suddenly the old rules and courtesies were dispensable, and anyone’s life might boom or bust. The 1920s and 1930s always hold this fascination, whether your reading tends upmarket with the bright young things or down with the desperate: whether its Mitford and Waugh or Orwell and Hamilton. This playhouse , like the Jermyn, has been adept at finding contemporaneous plays and adapting books which bring the time to life. At its centre Bob – a lively, boyish Jordan Scowen – wants to be a writer but is a barman, and a drinker, and obsessed with the elusive prostitute Jenny…