Written in 1978, Nigel Williams' Class Enemy was originally set in South London at the time when punk was first spitting in the face of the nation. It reflected a very real fear that the new youth culture was going to somehow crush society.

Updated to modern-day Sarajevo by Haris Pasovic of the acclaimed East West Theatre Company of that city, this production speaks equally strongly.

The concern this time is a generation which has been so brutalised by the civil war that it has become brutal itself, and has now been abandoned by a society unable to cope with it.

In a smashed up high-school classroom, in which everything that can be broken or vandalised has been, seven teenage pupils are waiting for another sap to attempt the impossible and try to teach them.

Class 4C prides itself in being able to break teacher and social worker alike. They are the class where rejects are sent as a last resort.

They might act like a pack, snarling and fighting with each other, but as soon as anyone from outside tries to intervene they turn as one on the intruder.

The class is dominated by aggressive bully, Iron. When he's not boasting of his sexual conquests and slapping his sidekick Kid around, he's probably quite bright. His only real rival is Cobra, equally capable of aggression, and she has her own sidekick, Chick.

A couple of pals who seem only able to express themselves through hip-hop rap hang around on sufferance, so long as they run errands for Iron, while Serbian girl Sky drifts in and out. Famous for breaking every window in the school, she's always got a bag of glue for the kids to get stoned on.

Pasovic has the company rushing and bashing across the stage in an intensely physical performance. The fact that they are speaking their hyper-realistic lines in Bosnian and that the subtitles don't keep up is not too bad.

Half their communication is through violence at any rate.

It is technically stunning in terms of the timing of the fighting, the actor's creation of character and the realism of their actions. Even when Kitty and Cat break out into their hip-hop rap, it works.

The individual performances are also very strong. Amar Selimovic is constantly good to watch as Iron, while Maja Zeco is mesmerising as Cobra. And when they all begin to start rocking back and forth, it is a brutally honest portrayal of psychotic behaviour.

But while you might believe in the realism of what you are watching on stage, it is hard to see what relevance it all has.

It is certainly relevant in Sarajevo, horribly so given the atrocities of the siege between 1992 and 1996. But sitting in the red-plush environment of the Lyceum, it doesn't really feel as if it has anything to do with the here and now.

Even at the start, before any sense of place has been established, it doesn't feel real. And when Iron forces each of the class to try and teach their fellow pupils a lesson, of their own choice and devising, it just gets increasingly distant.

Run ends Saturday