Is there anybody more talented than Nina Raine currently working in theatre? There are those who shine as writers; there are those who glitter as directors. Not many can be both. And when they are, self-indulgence is a huge danger. Not here.
Although Tiger Country is Raine's third offering, it was written before her previous play, Tribes, about a spectacularly argumentative (Jewish) family with a deaf son.
Here, in two hours and with a cast of 15 who play 28 surgeons, doctors, patients and nurses, this rambling, utterly engrossing and timely dissection of life and death in an NHS hospital achieves more reality and delivers more gripping stories than several series of Casualty put together.
True, like any hospital drama there are crises both medical and in the medics' private lives. But this is a much more visceral portrait. If you are squeamish, look away from the projections of surgical procedures, but listen out for Raine's scalpel-sharp gallows humour.
Under Ed Hall's artistic direction, the expensively built Hampstead, here brilliantly converted into hospital by designer Lizzie Clachan, is at last paying real dividends.
(Tel: 020 7722 9301)