“Adulting sucks,” says Steph. She and partner Michael have been invited to Phoebe and Nick’s new house for drinks and nibbles, a strange move as Steph and Phoebe haven’t seen each other for a decade and only once in the last two years connected on socials over a ‘happy birthday’ comment. On top of owning their own home, Nick’s got an upwardly mobile career – not bad for Gen Z – whereas Michael’s just finished his PhD on memes and is crossing fingers for academic work. Michael wears a t-shirt and loose pants, drinks craft brew; Nick’s clothes appear pressed as he brings out a bottle of his father’s favourite single-malt scotch. The men don’t have much in common and they don’t really get along, but the night isn’t about them. It’s about Steph and Phoebe. Or is it?

Have and have-not tales are as old as time, only now there’s a subheading: the housing market. Nothing like a “1.6 million” answer when the renter asks the homeowner how much the house cost – unless it’s “Well, more like 1.62, but who’s counting”. For Phoebe, it’s all about rising up the socio-economic pole; for Steph, it’s a question of where she and Michael will live in four weeks, now that their lease isn’t being renewed.

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Writer and director James Watson’s The Housewarming is a study in tension. From the opening, Phoebe is too overwhelmed to fake a happy Insta post to her million-plus followers about her new home, and Nick is pressuring her to hurry up. Virginia Blackwell plays the unhappily, however well-groomed, kept woman with a frantic kind of poise, and Daniel Fryar-Calabro’s Nick is boisterously and believably confident. Juxtaposed is Emelia Williams’s over-it attitude in her portrayal of Steph, and Chris Gun’s easy-natured Michael, a waving while drowning kind of man.

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The four characters are wrapped in their own personas from their first appearances on stage, pitted against one another from the very start, and this, for me, is where the play falters. Without a moment of comradery, without a measure of equality, there is no light to their shade – and their shade is constant. Maybe it’s the nature of his character, but Gun (whose credits include Noel Gallagher in the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man) seems to handle his character brief most naturally, without overdoing it.

Goodwood Theatre & Studio consistently presents high-quality shows, and The Housewarming is no exception. A fabulous venue, with its main stage accommodating an audience of just over two hundred, it manages to remain intimate. After being led through the venue door, though, The Housewarming’s audience heads up a few steps to the stage and through the curtains to find traverse seating, so that there are two rows on either side of the makeshift stage, which is level with the audience.

It’s like an up-close and personal private screening, but if you have to leave the show for whatever reason, you are not allowed back. Perhaps there is a good reason for this – a kind of voyeuristic glass-house interpretation that the micro-managed space brings to the show, or maybe we’re houseguests, too, only silent ones on the outer. But I found it unnecessary and, more to the point, unyielding to audience members who might not be able to sit through a 90-minute show without a toilet break (pregnant women beware). Special seating aside, the high drama and cast of four in a single room lends itself to an inherent claustrophobia.

Reminiscent of one of  Tennessee Williams’ casts of over-the-top characters with an emotional narrative arc, The Housewarming is full of surprises and rolls along with a cracking pace. It is, to be sure, drama at its most dramatic.

The Housewarming is playing at Goodwood Theatre & Studios from April 24 – May 2