Nineties pop fireball Ronan Keating once sang ‘if tomorrow never comes’ as a starting point to consider telling loved ones of their worth in the wake of his impending doom. Samuel Evan’s Tomorrow, on the other hand, looks at what a group of five individuals would do when they are convinced that tomorrow brings with it a wholly better world.

Clive is very nervously holding a party. He is wearing his best suit and adorning a small table with too much food to cater for his expected two best friends and the nameless neighbours he had his friend post invites through the door of. His first guest to arrive is a man from his building. The guest clutches a large canton of orange juice close to his chest, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a beanie. He looks the total opposite of suit clad Clive. Their awkward exchange is part sweet, part cringe, with an energy that suggests electric banter may continue for the rest of the play. Yet, what tends to happen in each scene is that the action starts off strongly, but the dialogue falls into a swirling hole, unable to escape but keeping relative momentum. It’s mostly entertaining, but you begin to wonder where it’s all going. Like tomorrow, the point of it all seems a little elusive.

Clive lives on an estate in Elephant and Castle. Two of the neighbouring estates have been demolished, and the residents suspect that theirs will soon follow, leaving them to wonder where they’ll live next. His party is being held on the eve of ‘tomorrow’. Tomorrow is never really explained, but we know that it is a better time. All of society expects the world to change and they are allowed to passively sit and enjoy themselves whilst a gargantuan change is resting up. ‘Tomorrow’  this change will press reset on the mess that the world has made of itself.

We learn that each character is going through some sort of hardship, and the group seem unified by their collective trauma, though the details are only loosely sketched. The most obvious distress pours out from Clive, whose nervous behaviour in the group often renders him at the mercy of his friend’s sympathy.

There are glimmers of hope in Tomorrow that make it worth paying attention to, but really the play never fully settles. The writing has moments of majesty, where we are swept away in quite moving sequences of dialogue, but overall the play felt bogged down in too much noise and not enough reflection. The dialogue is repetitive in parts and the action seems circular. Whilst this may be intended to heighten our anticipation of what tomorrow may be, and underline the inability of these characters to transcend their past, it meant that the play dragged. It could have easily lost 15 minutes and be punchier for it. Though it felt under rehearsed, it was clear that strong actors had been cast, and the bones of the piece holds great potential. It’s too raw to be celebrated in its current state, but there is a lot to savour. Tomorrow holds plenty of promise.

Tomorrow is playing at the Arts Theatre until Saturday 12 March. For tickets and further information: www.artstheatrewestend.co.uk/whats-on/tomorrow