How hard is for young people to buy their own home? What price will you pay to get on the property ladder? Sure, you may consider selling your granny, perhaps one of less attractive children – but murder?

This is the premise for Philip Ridley’s play Radiant Vermin, a story which features young, desperates Jill and Ollie (Dani Heron and Martin Quinn) whom we learn are living on a council estate so ugly it makes a midden look like a Kilmacolm mansion.

But then the couple get the chance of moving into social housing, via a new government initiative, thanks to the curious official that is Miss Dee (Julie Wilson Nimmo.) And she informs the couple they can have the house for free. If they carry out some ‘improvements’ to the area. But those ‘improvements’ – they come to realise later - involve far more than a bit of fence painting and pushing the discarded trolley’s back to Morrisons. In fact, murder is involved which begs the question; would you kill – literally – for an island kitchen?

Ridley’s play, a black satirical comedy, also strikes at the moral mind, making us ask questions of ourselves, of our in-built materialism, of how we can spend weekends in John Lewis shopping for very nice brown leather sofas while people are living on top of cardboard. It asks how we can put barricades up on the back room that is our conscience. “This is quite a dark play,” says Dani Heron and it really makes you think about homelessness.” She pauses and adds; “After rehearsals when I’m making my way towards the station, all you see along Argyle Street is homeless people - and the guilt I feel when walking past is overwhelming.”

Radiant Vermin rehearsals with Dani Heron and Julie Wilson Nimmo Radiant Vermin rehearsals with Dani Heron and Julie Wilson Nimmo (Image: free)

Heron reveals a wry smile and demonstrates reaching into the pockets of her trousers. “I’m taken by the urge to empty my pockets and give them money.”

But that’s not to suggest the satire is one long excavation of the audience’s minds. “No, it’s a real journey in that it’s funny one minute and you’re drawn into the comedy of it all,” she says of the piece, directed by Johnny McKnight. “But the next minute it goes really dark. We get to see this couple have made a sort of Faustian Pact in order to grab at material things and keep up with the neighbours.” The play asks ‘Is enough ever enough? “And at the end of it you can be sure it will make an audience think.”

Dani Heron is perfectly placed to take audiences on that journey. Since being dropped off at Pace Theatre in Paisley as a 10-year-old she has gone on to play a great range of powerful theatre roles and reveal a remarkable comedic talent. Her self-penned one woman show ten Things to Do Before You Die Heron showed she can ooze vulnerability and roles in John Byrne’s Underwood Lane and Ann Marie Di Mambro’s Tally’s Blood revealed a terrific all-rounder who can sing and dance.

Now, Heron will act alongside Martin Quinn, the Paisley-born actor who has recently flown the galaxy in Hollywood’s latest Star Trek adventure, playing Scottie. “I’ve known Martin since he was a wee guy at Pace, where I became one of the helpers,” she says, smiling. “But he’s not a wee guy anymore. In fact, he’s my husband.”

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Dani Heron also has the life experience to understand the pressures of a young person attempting to land a foot on the housing ladder and improve their lives. At the moment she rents with an actor pal. But she also grew up in Paisley’s Hunterhill, in a street that was less than salubrious. “I can understand the desperation of the characters in the play to move up in the world. We lived in a middle flat in a close when I was young, and the other flats in the building in Blackford Road were boarded up, ready to be flattened.” How bad was that early experience? “Let’s just say it was character building,” she grins. “I could write a play about Blackford Road.”

And she may indeed do exactly that. Meantime, Heron is crossing her fingers and hoping for the TV job that will offer the deposit on a home of her own. “I love acting. Going to youth theatre has shaped and changed my life. But sometimes it’s challenging. Before I even left Lamda (drama college in London) I went straight into theatre and a little TV job, and I thought ‘This is amazing!’ But then – nothing. So I figured I should return to Scotland, and that has really worked out for me in terms of the theatre work.

Yet, acting has yet to offer up the sort of money that could take her into her own home. “No. But you just try to remember that something can come along that will change your career in an instant,” she says, clicking her fingers. Like Martin landing Star Trek? “Exactly!” she agrees, grinning.

Don’t Miss: Party of the Century, Play Pie and a Pint, Oran Mor Glasgow, June 17 – 22, is a comedic re-telling of Dickens which sees a man revisited by three ghosts of Conservative past. Featuring Paul McCole, Helen McAlpine and Tyler Collins.