Problem gambling is a blight on people’s lives that often passes under the radar. Perhaps it’s because, unlike drink or drug addiction, its negative effects are less physically apparent, or perhaps the “it could be you” positivity and champagne-popping lucky winners brainwash us to the downside. But ask anyone who’s ever worked in a betting shop, or anyone who’s ever been close to a gambler, and they’ll tell you. It can be deadly; sometimes, as in All of Me, literally.

Gareth, our protagonist in this one man play, is the classic beta male beloved of British sitcoms like Dear John and Ever Decreasing Circles. He’s the small man, the man for whom life hasn’t rolled easy, the man always on the receiving end. Here, in an excellent portrayal by Tommy Burgess, he hits you like Leonard Rossiter playing Tim from The Office. His boss’s name, Derrick Wentworth, and the company he works for, Prime Travels, only add to this vibe. It does make the play quite difficult to locate in time, though. With Gareth’s clothes and ‘tache taken into account as well, you’d think we were in the 70s, if it weren’t for the laptops and online gambling sites. Gareth also looks older than his years and is hard to place. He could be anything from a prematurely aged 20-something to a middle-aged mummy’s boy.

We soon learn of the sadnesses in Gareth’s life – he’s been sacked, and his Dad’s no longer with us. At first, the gambling seems a positive distraction from that. His gambling strategy he got from his Dad, and he’s positive that if he sticks with it, fortune will soon come his way. Unfortunately, that single-mindedness is a common characteristic of both very successful gamblers, the handful that there are, and the doomed addicts who will follow their belief off a cliff. It emerges just how linked all the aspects of Gareth’s life are, and credit is due to writer Martin Brett not only for his insight into the gambling mentality, but the subtlety with which it is introduced.

Equally of note is Nicola Ralph’s design and Liz Bacon’s direction. The deceptively simple set is made from office packing boxes, but very clever use is made of them. The contents double as both physical objects and Gareth’s mental clutter. Frequently, Gareth will unveil something from them. From beneath the lids, he unravels hand-drawn pictures of “friends” from the bookies at one point; othertimes the boxes are spilt to send poker chips scattering across the stage. It all feels very natural, and the metaphor of his disintegrating life isn’t hammered home, even as the set becomes increasingly chaotic.

There probably isn’t time in the forty minutes to trace the full extent of a problem gambler’s self-deceptions. The occasional euphoria is underplayed, and the play covers many different types of gambling – horses, online poker, fruit machines – in brief bursts, without lingering quite long enough to capture the full dead-eyed, hollowed-out, repetitive horror of a man churning a month’s rent into a machine. We get flavour enough though.

Then, just as you’re wondering where the tension and resolution is going to come in this otherwise very affecting character study, a dark twist hits you out of nowhere. Even having watched Gareth falling apart, it’s a surprise, but a well-considered one, that it comes to the end it does.

There is much to admire about this well-crafted play, where writing, acting, design and direction come together in a very satisfying manner for an interesting purpose. Tantalisingly though, it feels there could be even more to say if it were longer.