JAMES McDERMOTT’S charming new play Time and Tide picks apart the lives of a small community in Norfolk, coming to terms with, or struggling to face, change.

Set in a small, run-down cafe at the end of Cromer pier (an authentic and realistic set design by Caitlin Abbott), McDermott’s own experiences of working in a cafe in Norfolk helped him develop his storyline and characters, spending his days “watching people and listening to what they weren’t saying to each other which taught me lots about human interaction and subtext,” he tells us in the author’s note.

It’s not a particularly unusual story — young cafe worker Nemo, who is gay, is leaving Norfolk for the bright lights and sights of London. His boss May, a surrogate mother figure, is toying with the idea of selling up her cafe as customers turn to Costa and other chain coffee places, while Nemo’s best friend Daz is finding it hard to accept that Nemo’s leaving — more, as we find out in the second half of the play, than he’s willing to admit.