The Sugar Syndrome review – Lucy Prebble's dark encounters still connect

Orange Tree, London
Oscar Toeman directs a striking revival of the 2003 play about the relationship between a teenage girl and a paedophile

Since Lucy Prebble's award-winning first play premiered in 2003, the drama of online existence has been staged in bigger and ever more original ways, especially at the Royal Court in London, where The Sugar Syndrome was originally directed by Marianne Elliot. Last year, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner tackled online racism, misogyny and the tyranny of social media with theatrical bravura, while Midnight Movie reflected on the connections and liberations that internet forums can offer those who are ill, isolated or bedridden.

So what does a revival of The Sugar Syndrome offer us today ? On a cosmetic level, a certain noughties nostalgia: the internet here is dial-up and phones are bricklike. Dani, the glib 17-year-old with an eating disorder, talks of herself as a Generation X-er and Lewis, the 22-year-old she occasionally sleeps with, has copies of the NME stashed under his bed.