People, Places and Things, Dorfman, National Theatre, review: Generous-spirited with a strong streak of darkly humane humour

Back in 2000, David Hare's play My Zinc Bed suggested that, in the moral vacuum left by the collapse of the old certainties, addiction (to drink, drugs, shopping) had replaced ideology. We were now driven by our compulsions rather than our convictions, it was argued, and one of its characters castigated Alcoholics Anonymous as a cult that substituted one form of dependency with another. I liked the piece better than some, while agreeing that it was slightly too systematic and that it didn't pull you into the nervous system of an addictive personality.