Kat Griffiths wrote The Cure during her second year of studying English at Cambridge. To complete a play so young is an impressive achievement, and it’s great to see some new writing on the stage, especially coming from an enviroment which has, in the past, been lacking in student writing.

Dylan (Joey Batey) and Jude (Sophia Sibthorpe) are best friends at university. They’re currently working on a piece of performance art, but are continually interrupted by their violent yet vulnerable friend Jo (Tamara Astor) and Dylan’s well-meaning yet prejudiced father (George Potts). This set-up is a perfectly adequate frame on which to hang the characters’ sprawling conversations about the way they are in this modern world, their theories about the habit of love and need for intimacy and understanding. Often these conversations are far too hysterical. Yes, the ideas are interesting and believably urgent, but anxiousness to put them forward does not need to be so clearly signposted by such dramatic declaration. The Cure is much more sophisticated than, say, a scribbled poem with copious unnecessary enjambment, or some other such easily parodied form of adolescent angst, but its origins are similar.

Though clearly packaged with some existential pondering, it’s definitely the comedy that’s most well observed throughout. Dylan asks Jude where her confidence has been hiding. “I think it was lodged somewhere behind my hymen,” she replies. The best lines are the most naturalistic – more intelligent student banter, less ill-prepared Philosophy supervision.

When at its more measured, dialogue was very occasionally delivered too fast to be audible over the sound of the fan in the sweltering room. Overall, acting is very commendable and believable (when taken into account with the play’s style), particularly Sibthorpe’s and Potts’s portrayals – the latter providing much-needed humour, the former as central to the performance as the character demands.

The clever, energetic scene changes were very successful – the actors’ physical presences held the attention of the audience. Well-thought-out lighting and a varied soundtrack  were other strong points, indicative of competant and convincing direction from Simon Haines  Particularly in these aspects, the scene in which the characters went paintballing manages to be genuinely innovative. All the shouting was at last justified – the scene-setting music they must be heard over was turned up loud – and, alongside all of the emotional turbulence, the entirely odd past time of paintballing was mocked. “Zone 34 – The Palace of Persecution” the arena voice over announced, as the unathletic Dylan is hit by imaginary gunfire yet again.

The complex, funny and insightful relationships between the characters remained more exciting than the confusing philosophies. But what is here is promising: the ideas that The Cure contains just need to find a way to sit comfortably in the naturalistic setting that all involved are trying to depict.

You might well recognise aspects of yourself or people you know in the characters onstage, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll care sufficiently about what happens to them. The issues of Dylan, Jude and Jo will clearly remain unresolved after the curtain has fallen.