Chatting to some stall holders at the Brent Green Day at the Kiln Theatre about how the vibe inside it, quiet, prosperous, with a clientelle that is evidently well to do – drifting over from various manifestations of Hampstead perhaps – is such a striking contrast to the hard bitten, impoverished, tough dramas of everyday life on the streets outside. The Kiln puts on a lot of challenging drama, addressing some of those issues, but rarely engaging with the people they affect, in a sort of performative bubble, it seems to me.

Outside Tescos a woman sits on her knees begging. A bearded, slightly wild eyed, man marches past and snarls “Why don’t you get up off your arse and get a job? How about that?” He marches on feeling better about himself no doubt. The woman just stares.

Further up, outside a pawnbrokers, a ragged looking bloke with wild looking hair and some missing teeth sits astride a Lime bike waiting for something and mutters at me as I walk past. I ask him what he said and he repeats “Do you buy gold?” I am wearing a preoccupied expression, a crumpled shirt, with at least one curry stain, and carrying an overfull rusksack and Morrisons plastic bag. I’m not my idea of a gold dealer. Deep cover perhaps? Or perhaps a different sort of “gold”?