There is always something magical about taking a taxi home from London late at night. I’ve made that journey down the Old Kent Road myself, cocooned in the back seat while the city flashes past the windows, familiar streets transformed by darkness and artificial light. You watch London, but you’re temporarily detached from it. Eventually you reach your destination, pay the driver and disappear behind your front door.

But what about the person behind the wheel?

That change of perspective lies at the heart of Max Wilkinson’s Night City, a sprawling, ambitious portrait of London after dark that takes us into the lives of the people who keep the capital moving while the rest of us are sleeping, partying or simply passing through.

At its centre is Jack (Jack Ambrose), a driver for the fictional GoGo Cars. Jack’s life is lived largely at night, fuelled by stimulants, pounding clubs, casual encounters and an endless succession of strangers climbing into his car. Through them, and through the parallel stories of care worker Tamara (Helena Pipe) and waitress and aspiring writer Tia (Bex Smith), Wilkinson builds a picture of a city populated by people working precariously, dreaming of something better and making fleeting connections with one another.

There is something distinctly Dickensian about it all. Not the London of fog, gas lamps and hansom cabs kind of Dickens, but a recognisably modern equivalent: the glittering city viewed from its underbelly, sustained by people whose work is often barely noticed by those benefiting from it. The workhouse has been replaced by the app and the star rating, but exploitation, inequality and the struggle to escape your circumstances remain horribly familiar.

That comparison isn’t entirely accidental. Wilkinson has spoken about Dickens as one of the influences on the play, alongside writers including James Joyce and Jean Rhys, and about wanting to create something almost novelistic in scope. The play itself was partly inspired by a night-time journey along the Old Kent Road, when Wilkinson passed the aftermath of an accident involving a delivery rider. That image ultimately found its way into Night City.

The resulting play is enormous in ambition despite the intimacy of the space and the simplicity of Olivia Jamieson’s set. Its most striking feature is a series of heavy chains suspended across the stage. They are moved, manipulated and navigated by the performers, sometimes seeming to divide the space into cages, sometimes becoming part of the architecture of the city itself.

For me, those chains became one of the most powerful images in the production. They suggest the forces binding these characters to lives from which escape is difficult: money, work, technology, responsibility and circumstance. Throughout the play the actors also smear black grease from a tin onto one another’s faces. The meaning of this is left open to interpretation, but I found something rather moving in the idea of these lives literally leaving their mark: the dirt and residue of the city accumulating on the people who keep it functioning.

However, the chains also contain a contradiction. Threaded through them are lights which, when illuminated by lighting and video designer Arnim Friess, can become almost blindingly bright. Suddenly the very objects that appeared oppressive are transformed. The chains still bind, but they also carry the light. There is a way through.

The lit chains are a beautifully simple visual representation of something Night City repeatedly explores: these characters may be trapped by economic and social forces, but they are not merely victims. There is humour here, alongside music, sex, ambition, affection and moments of genuine connection. Darkness and possibility exist side by side.

The design is particularly effective when Jack disappears into London’s nightclubs. Chains, hard white light, pounding sound and bodies in constant movement create a remarkably convincing industrial club environment. I’ve been in those clubs, and the sensory assault here feels unnervingly authentic. With very little physically on stage, director Ebenezer Bamgboye and his creative team repeatedly conjure entirely different corners of nocturnal London.

Running at around 90 minutes without an interval, the production barely pauses for breath. That feels entirely appropriate: Jack keeps driving, London keeps moving and characters flash in and out of one another’s lives. An interval would only break the spell.

And they do all of this with just three actors.

Ambrose, Pipe and Smith populate Wilkinson’s city with a dizzying succession of passengers, workers, patients and strangers, switching age, accent, physicality and personality at speed. All three are superb, and Bamgboye’s direction demands extraordinary versatility from them.

It seems almost unfair to pick a favourite from such an accomplished trio, but Bex Smith’s Gigi particularly stayed with me. Her transformation into the elderly woman cared for by Tamara is wonderful, funny and deeply human. Helena Pipe brings warmth and vulnerability to Tamara, particularly as the pressures of a care system that allows too little time for the people who need it most begin to take their toll, while Jack Ambrose gives the restless driver at the centre of the story a compelling mixture of swagger, recklessness and fragility. Pipe also has a beautiful singing voice, used to lovely effect.

If Night City occasionally loses me, it is in Wilkinson’s writing rather than the performances or production surrounding it. The play moves through a huge number of characters and scenes, its stories colliding and overlapping in a deliberately fragmented way. At times I struggled to establish immediately who someone was or precisely how a particular strand connected to another.

Ambiguity can be exciting; it asks an audience to do some of the work. But there are moments here when Night City risks becoming too inaccessible for its own good. Wilkinson’s ideas are fascinating, but they are not always communicated with the same clarity with which they have clearly been conceived. Knowing something about the premise beforehand certainly helped me find my way through it.

Yet perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay Night City is that I was still unpicking its imagery on the journey home. The chains, the grease, the bursts of almost painful light and the disparate lives intersecting for a few minutes before separating again all continued to reveal connections after the play had finished.

And then there is Jack’s heart.

His lifestyle is chaotic and physically punishing, but his heart problems also provide Night City with its most potent metaphor. Night after night, Jack drives through London’s arteries, carrying people from one part of the city to another. Around him are Tamara, Tia and countless other largely invisible workers, driving, delivering, caring, serving, cleaning and keeping the metropolis alive while somebody else gets to enjoy its magic. They are its circulation. They are its pulse.

Whilst Night City may occasionally make us work harder than it needs to in order to understand its characters and events, Wilkinson, Bamgboye and an exceptional cast make a compelling case for turning our attention away from the view through the taxi window and towards the people whose labour keeps the lights of the city burning.

The next time I find myself travelling home down the Old Kent Road late at night, I suspect I’ll look at the person in the driver’s seat rather differently.

Night City continues at Southwark Playhouse, Borough, until 3rd October 2026, with tickets available here: Night City – Southwark Playhouse Borough

UTS Rating: 🎭🎭🎭🎭

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