Breakfast in bed for widowed mother-of-two Mel (Parker) isn't a glass of Sunny D and a bowl of Cheerios.

It's a syringe loaded with heroin served up on a tray by her 10-year-old son to save her the bother of preparing it herself.

"You did mix this properly," she asks young Paul (Eden). "Yeah, I've seen you do it enough times," is his reply.

And so the tone is set for this bleak delve into the sordid lives of drug-ravaged families eking out a bare existence on Britain's sink estates.

Paul is the surrogate father to the family after Mel succumbed to the lure of the needle when her husband died of a heart attack.

She's in thrall and hock to pusher Lenny (Wenham) and her only friend is the similarly addicted Vicki (Marsha Thomason), who turns tricks to finance her habit.

Living in the shadow of West Ham's ground, their prospects of playing happy families are about as bleak as the Hammers staying in the Premiership.

It's a tale of despair, false hope and grim resignation - and that's just the football club.

Actually, the litany of grinding pessimism stretches just a little too far when grand-dad is literally wheeled into the picture on a respirator. Enough, already.

This stands or falls on the quality of newcomer Eden's performance - and he turns in one just as strong as Jamie Bell in Billy Elliot.

However, unsurprisingly given the subject matter, this lacks the light and shade that made the latter so appealing.

The comic relief on offer has all the levity of a Christmas cracker in a morgue and never lightens the tone.

However, when things appear to be striding onto moral thin ice, they're just about saved by the quality of the writing and all-round excellence of the cast.

Imagine Albert Square declared a no-go zone by the Samaritans.

Tim Evans