The Dorfman (née the Cottesloe) is generally looked on as the National Theatre’s space for work which is perhaps not outright experimental, but some way into left field. It’s ironic that Rufus Norris’s generally more adventurous programming has assigned a play here which is unusual only in that it is so un-unusual.

David Eldridge is a fine playwright (Norris himself directed his Market Boy in the Olivier during Nicholas Hytner’s tenure), and the Dorfman is indubitably the right sized space for this two-hander. It begins as the last guest, Danny, has just failed to leave Laura’s party in her Crouch End flat in late 2015; they begin a chat full of awkward crossed wires and misfires, then move gradually closer... but only metaphorically, as for various reasons Danny is reluctant to succumb to Laura’s candid blandishments. In time it becomes clear that the title may be referring not to the beginning of a relationship but rather that of a life: Laura is looking to give her future child a “nice daddy”.

The fact that the play unfolds over 90 uninterrupted minutes of real time makes it somewhat unconventional in 2017 (although this was one of the basics of the Greek tragedies that invented drama as we know it). The performers, under Polly Findlay’s direction, are unfussily excellent. Justine Mitchell’s Laura excels at hidden responses just out of Danny’s line of sight, and I rated her the stronger player until a perusal of the programme afterwards revealed that shambling, diffident Essex boy Danny is in fact an utterly transformed Sam Troughton, playing well out of his accustomed position but no less skilfully.

It’s a lovely piece of work: out of the NT’s normal run of material, particularly in this space, but none the worse for that. It would make a glorious one-off TV play if only such creatures still existed. Despite having had work staged here, at Shakespeare’s Globe and in the West End (including his successful stage version of Festen), Eldridge is less well known as a writer than he deserves to be; this may not change that state of affairs seismically, but every little helps.

Written for the Financial Times.