Cradle Me
Finborough
****
SH*T-M*X
Trafalgar Studios
*

If ever we required a salutary reminder to look beyond the confines of the West End, the far superior of these two new dramas about teenagers provides it.

At the tiny Finborough, Cradle Me by Simon Vinnicombe is a mature, thoughtful and sensitive piece about a family sent spinning centrifugally by grief and latching onto very different, and mutually incompatible, coping mechanisms.

Seventeen-year-old Nick is dead, and his mother, father and younger sister each turn to, or react against, next-door neighbour Daniel, Nick’s best friend.

All four performances in Duncan Macmillan’s impressive production are superb, but special plaudits must go to Luke Treadaway as Daniel.

Looking startled like a child but with a depth of compassion that simultaneously suggests great age, Treadaway imbues this loner with a compelling but intriguingly non-threatening intensity.

It can be no wonder that Marion (Sharon Maughan) begins to turn to him for everything she cannot get from her emotionally absent husband or sexually precocious daughter (excellent Sarah Bedi).

The presciently named SH*T-M*X refers to an implausible home-brew drunk by an even more implausible group of teenagers.

Playwright Leo Richardson dumps this unengaging quintet on a park bench in south London and forces us to watch for nearly two hours as their posturing and predicaments become ever more unlikely.

The presence of Aimeé-Ffion Edwards from C4’s Skins may persuade some to part with their cash, but they’d be better off seeking oblivion with a bottle of the titular skull-number instead.

Both until 25 October. Cradle Me (0844 847 1652, www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk); SH*T-M*X (0870 060 6632, www.theambassadors.com/trafalgarstudios)