"I have measured out my life in coffee spoons," wrote T S Eliot.

Sitting in a coffeehouse watching people falling in and out of love, grieving, waiting for long-lost children, confessing secrets and changing career, all over drawn-out cups of coffee, it is easy to see what he meant.

The cast sit among the audience for this unusual series of short plays. Actors come in and out of the coffeeshop; waiting for each other, meeting, arguing, consoling and conspiring.

Great passions are played out in an ordinary cafe, with real staff behind the counter and real customers at every table.

This is the second year of this mesmeric concept. Last year Julian Clary loved it.

It is very English, very Brighton and very St James's Street. There are drag queen private detectives, Abba costumes and charismatic characters with intriguing pasts.

An elderly couple who have just come back from God's funeral ruminate on the weather and the coffee, before debating whether they had been more upset when they heard Diana, John Peel and Mother Theresa had died.

Flatmates discuss their talking cat. An elderly man waits for a daughter he has never met. Poetry and wonderfully-crafted dialogue is delivered with expertly-timed delivery.

The setting is perfect. You feel that these kinds of things do happen in this coffeeshop, that people have argued, made up, loved and shared secrets here.

This is great theatre, innovative and captivating, written and acted brilliantly.