Unprotected

This is seriously devastating stuff and it's very difficult to write about as if it were simply a play.

What we hear is the testimony of voices either connected with or affected by the Liverpool sex industry, which is also intimately interwoven with drug addiction.

The proposition for legal zones for prostitutes forced into the open serious concerns for safety; something brought into even sharper focus by the murder and dismemberment of two young streetwalkers.

It's one of those documentary productions that create such convincing real-life people from their words and hesitations that to talk about the actors seems almost like a betrayal. But that's because the six are so good at bringing those 17 people to life.

The highest compliment I can pay Leanne Best is to say that she didn't seem to be acting at all; she simply was Ali, the prostitute who gives us the greatest insights into life on drugs and on the streets.

Pauline Daniels and Joan Kempson as the mothers of the two murdered girls tell their stories with heart-stopping candour. Tricia Kelly, Neil Caple and Paul Duckworth add a multitude of other people to the stark, grim and uncomfortable picture.

It's not an easy play to watch but it brings to life people whose voices and opinions deserve to be heard, and does so with immense honesty.