The recruitment company to go to if you’ve got no arms or legs

When to launch? For impresarios, this is the eternal dilemma. Autumn is so crowded with press nights that producers are heard to sigh, ‘The market’s full. There’s no room.’ When the glut abates in late November, the same producers sob, ‘The market’s empty. There’s no point.’ But national rags have to report on something, even a fringey foxhole like the Southwark Playhouse, and a bold investor can exploit this opportunity.

Most of the dailies sent their top sniffer dogs to check out Saxon Court by Daniel Andersen, which is set in the feverish, sharp-suited world of Square Mile recruitment. The play belongs to the long and noble tradition of the workplace revenge comedy and Andersen is doubtless settling a few scores by presenting encrypted portraits of former colleagues. His strip-lit kiosk of greed and fear is entirely believable. But is it likable? We meet Tash, a ditzy receptionist, with a blonde curly-wurly hairdo and a boob job that’s visible from Neptune. There’s shy, grumpy Natalie, who seems to be sitting on a secret. Is she pregnant? Joey, the kingpin recruiter, is being nagged by his wife to secure a pay rise, so he invents a fictional job offer to screw more dosh from the boss. A couple of bullied duds make up the numbers.

The pivotal figure is Donna, the founder of Saxon Court and its dictator for life. She holds Kipper-ish views on benefit scroungers and she likes to chivvy up her sales team with battlefield anecdotes. No earthling, she preaches, lacks a marketable talent. A candidate born minus arms or legs? Call every CEO in London and ask if they want a stamp-licker. Opinions like that make her pretty nasty but her malevolence isn’t sufficiently epic or magnificent to inspire our fascinated and semi-adoring revulsion.