INSIGHTFUL and stirring, this award-winning 70-minute exposé of the rise in drug abuse at the time of  the 1981 inner-city riots is another exciting production at Bristol Old Vic’s Studio space.

Eve Steele and William Fox play Mandy and Neil, both from dysfunctional Mancunian families, who live through the riots in Moss Side repeated that year in many English cities suffering from social deprivation.

According to writer Ed Edwards, before 1981 there were only 3,000 known drug addicts in England, invariably middle-class users, and heroin was largely unknown on the streets. But four years later, 333,000 mainly working-class addicts were registered as heroin freely flowed through the inner cities.

Among many of the dictatorships, oppressive regimes and reactionary causes the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher supported, those of Nicaragua and the Afghan mojahedin opened up a well of illegal drug imports that flooded into Britain and were allowed to devastate a whole class of the justifiably angry dispossessed.

The play injects small powerful doses of political history into Mandy and Neil’s battle with life and drugs. Both performers bubble with energy and commitment and create a real sense of a lost generation.

Mandy uses heroin as an escape when her petty shoplifting fails to keep her emotionally afloat, while Neil just follows the herd. Their love and support for each other are tragically tinged with their habits.

But that does not mean the play is without humour and Edwards’s script is a full of observations of impoverished, wrecked lives without being maudlin. There are moments of sharp northern wit and the actors switching in and out of character with disagreements about their roles brings  a sense of objective analysis to proceedings.

Cressida Brown’s direction maintains the rapid-fire energy throughout but effectively allows changes of tempo as the social and human impact of Thatcher’s Britain is stripped bare.

On tour until February 22 at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Sheffield Studio Theatre, The Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, Live Theatre Newcastle upon Tyne, Waterdale Doncaster and Tron Theatre Glasgow.