Eleven real-life sex-workers share their stories with us in this powerful, if somewhat unfocused, piece of verbatim theatre. Edited by playwright Molly Taylor and directed by Mimi Poskitt, See Me Now brings home the sheer diversity of the world of prostitution and the polymorphous nature of what the clients desire.

The people offering their testimonies here range from Adorable, a trafficked West African woman, to Governess Elizabeth, a dominatrix who owns her own dungeon and wrote a dissertation on chastity. Gay, 67-year-old Peter is sought out mainly by heterosexual married guys (“straight men seem to be obsessed with the penis”); the highly cultured Flynt, a university drop-out turned male escort, has (among other things) been paid to make husbands and boyfriends jealous and now yearns for monogamy and fatherhood.

There are those who chose to enter the oldest profession as a means to an end – like caustic, no-nonsense Beth who cleared off her loans for drama school but then there's a police raid (“Do I look as if I have been bloody trafficked? From Stoke?”) and so now she has a criminal record that prevents her from doing the valuable voluntary work that the prostitution had subsidised. She indignantly tells us that her 17 hours in custody were more humiliating than anything she experienced in the brothel. There are those who fall into it – such as D, a singer with a terrific voice who had some chart success in the Nineties before she became addicted to crack cocaine. For some, like Ric London, in his “Orgasm Donor” T-shirt, who sees his role as being somewhere between a therapist and a life coach, it beats working in Sainsbury's as an outlet for creativity.

They all appear as themselves rather than impersonated by actors in a piece that embraces song and dance and various performance styles. Any misgivings that this “casting” decision would turn See Me Now into a freak show for titillated voyeurs are quickly dispelled. What comes across is a moving near-paradox as people who have been marginalised and stigmatised for their clandestine contact with strangers now summon the courage to speak freely and candidly to a room full of them. It’s a great tribute to all concerned that the production generates such a warm atmosphere of trust. Wry, dry humour keeps surfacing even in the most intense of testimonies. Pan tells us the hair-raising story of her need to transition back to womanhood from the boy body foisted on her by her parents. Ironic, she points out, that her work now requires her to wear strap-ons. Jane, a former sex worker who is on the wagon from drink and crack, confesses that she had to “smoke before I blow”.

The exceptional sense of emotional immediacy is only enhanced by the untrained delivery and the clearly spontaneous moments when some figures had to fumble for their lines or fight to retain their composure at the performance I saw. It is, rightly and responsibly, disarming. I have seen considerably more awkward audience-participation sequences than the rather grave and dignified dance in which they invite some punters to participate. The piece is open to the charge that it ends up as a therapy session for the performers and I would have liked a strand where these shrewd, witty people talked about how they got be involved in the project in the first and about whether they have come to think of themselves as, in any way, a self-selecting group.