Jonathan Harvey's play has had three first nights, at the Bush, the Donmar Warehouse and now at the Duke of  York's and has gathered further plaudits on each occasion. I am glad to add my own, because just when we have been bemoaning the fact that no new playwrights get a foothold in the West End, along comes this 26-year-old with a work which is both funny and moving. Moreover it is one that will do more for the gay cause than all the others we have seen, put together. It is a teenage love story, the burgeoning feelings of two Thamesrnead boys, neighbours in the same grim tower block. They tentatively probe each others emotions against a contemporary urban background and look forward to a future in which their sexuality will at least be secure, even if their employment prospects are none too bright. There is no moaning or self-pity about this play, in which people survive, not exactly against the odds, for there is no real deprivation, but by confronting what they are. Jamie’s mother Sandra, a single parent with a rather too helpful boyfriend, and the teenage girl neighbour Leah, with her Mama Cass fixation show signs of coming to terms themselves at the end of the play, taking a leaf out of the boys’ book. But the main point is that all five are likeable and believable people, with vitality, albeit sometimes misplaced, and a high level of Cockney determination.

Though Zubin Varla and Richard Dormer, playing Jamie and Ste, are a few years too old for their roles, they manage to convince us that they are schoolboys rapidly acquiring grown-up traits and tastes. There is strong support, under Hettie Macdonald’s direction, from Amelda Brown, as the mother who is a champion barmaid, feisty Diane Paris, who has a hilarious bad trip scene, and Rhys Ifans.