THIS is a play about assumptions and received wisdoms, a world of black and white in which there are no shades of grey.

The dishwashers exist downstairs - of course – while well-heeled toffs feast and drink fine wines like water.

In the scheme of things, these two planets should never come within each other’s orbit. But Emmett (Rik Makarem) is down on his luck, so must leave his gastronomic heaven and move downstairs to the hot place.

It is here that he meets time-server Dressler (David Essex) and the seedier-than-seedy Moss (Andrew Jarvis), a festering compost heap of a man who really shouldn’t be nearer than a million miles from any food preparation area.

So far, so good… Morris Panych’s stark depiction of servitude works. But the trouble is that he soon falls into the trap that all leftwards-leaning writers set for themselves, the set-in-stone Thatcher period mindset that all life consists of a narrow range of absolutes with nothing in between.

The Panych world is populated either by smirking, privileged people in tailcoats lording it up, or grim-faced downtrodden serfs propping up the former category’s lifestyle with nothing in between.

Panych, like fellow playwright John Godber, is a record with its needle stuck in the 1980s, for the problem with all drama set in a political time-warp is that it starts to look dated very quickly indeed.

This is because the nature of capitalism is that it is adept at adapting to changing conditions. Today’s exploited, huddled masses are more likely to be white-collar workers rather than people wearing grimy aprons and appearing as if they all need a really long hot shower. Bank and office staff, supermarket assistants… journalists, even.

For the sweatshops of low-wage Mumbai have now replaced the dark, satanic mills of William Blake’s Jerusalem. But Panych doesn’t appear to have noticed, the hated Iron Lady might as well still be running things.

That said, former 1970s pop star Essex as the barrack room lawyer brings a commanding presence to his role, a kitchen sink orator cum philosopher whose verbal duelling never fails to get the better of his rookie companion Emmett.

And it is his superb sense of timing and stage presence which basically rescues a work that doesn’t appear to have travelled all that well.

The Dishwashers runs at Malvern Theatres until Saturday (March 22).