IT S all rather familiar now; the homely mum who yearns for passion again, the hunky hubbie (unfortunately not hers) who is willing to supply it; the super vixen training her four-year-old for Harvard. What makes Little Children a cut above the usual is n

IT'S all rather familiar now; the homely mum who yearns for passion again, the hunky hubbie (unfortunately not hers) who is willing to supply it; the super vixen training her four-year-old for Harvard.

What makes Little Children a cut above the usual is not only some very good writing but the portrait of Ronnie, the pathetic but scary paedophile, and his pursuer Larry, who is just as much a loser and just as pathetic.

The characters skate through a summer in suburban America, testing emotions from naked passion to anguish and from sordid to downright sinister.

Oh the drama of middle class middle America! It will be amazing if those little children in the title grow up at all, never mind in the mould of their fine upstanding professional parents.

Thanks to David's Bookshop, Letchworth GC. 3/5