ANDY and Jen are a young couple with a baby. The child is being raised by Jen’s family because she and Andy are drug addicts.

To try to turn their lives around, the couple move back to the village they grew up in and take over a smallholding.

Their aim is to plant and sell vegetables, breed pigs, kick their drug habits, and try to get their baby back.

Unfortunately, although Jen tries hard to make a new start, Andy is feckless, invoices are unpaid, and he reverts to clandestine drug use.

Their new home becomes increasingly squalid, Andy’s behaviour becomes relentlessly violent and unbalanced – at one point he grotesquely severs a cow’s horn.

As the money runs out, their home is trashed by unpaid drug dealers, Andy barters Jen sexually, and they get an eviction notice.

Even Christmas becomes a hallucinatory blur with Father Christmas and snow, as Jen succumbs to cocaine and the oven catches fire. Can they save their relationship, give up drugs, and get their daughter back?

Smallholding is a contemporary new play, written by Chris Dunkley, and is a joint production between High Tide Festival Theatre and the Nuffield, the final show of Patrick Sandford’s 25 years as an award-winning director at the Nuffield.

In the lead roles, Chris New and Matti Houghton are utterly convincing and compelling.

If you want to discourage your kids from taking drugs, take them to see this grim gritty drama. Runs until Saturday.