Eight actors, six monologues. Do the math as our Yankee cousins might say. During Eight at the Alma Tavern Theatre, two actors sit on stage during the entire performance without uttering a word as the other six stand up from their stools to talk about their life.

The actors who will perform their “state-of-the-nation” monologues are chosen by the audience before the start of the show. Audience members are given voting slips and a brief summary of each character’s life. We tick four and the top-six are chosen, leaving two unfortunate actors to literally sit this performance out.

The process was even more brutal when Room One Productions, a young Bristol-based theatre company formed from the UWE Drama Society, took Eight to the Edinburgh Festival. There, four actors out of eight were chosen each night.

It is an intriguing concept in our modern society where more young people vote in the X Factor than the General Election, and I could not help wondering whether we as an audience had made the right decision as gay art gallery owner Andre (Ed Browning) and ex-squaddie Danny (James Pettefar) remained silent, their stories remaining untold.

Writer Ella Hickson gave us some absorbing characters, each with a dark story to tell. First on stage last night was Miles (Chris Levens), a successful American broker caught up in the July 7 bus bombing. With sweat dripping down his face, Levens presented a lonely and isolated man whose swagger is on the wane.

Astrid (Liz Webb, above), pondered the impact of her infidelity while lying next to her boyfriend; Bobby (Gemma Reynolds) was a pitiful single mother dreaming of a better life for her children; Mona (Sophie Hansford) runs away from home and meets a mystery man in a graveyard.

Two particular highlights for me were George Mills as horny schoolboy Jude, falling for an older woman on an exchange trip to France; and Adam Jones as Buttons, sitting alone in his prison cell fantasising about Victorian wenches. Both injected some humour in their characters, but then took them and our emotions to dark places.

This darkness is an overriding theme in Eight, with only brief hints of light and redemption in a well-written series of monologues presented by some very talented young actors.

Eight is at the Alma Tavern Theatre until April 2. Click here for more information.