moved close to the bone. The man next to me freezes as he raises his plastic cup of Chardonnay to his lips. What's happening a few feet away looks uncomfortably like what he saw last weekend when he was waiting for the night bus back from Shepherd's Bush. Don't get involved... but we can't move away. One minute ago we were swapping pleasantries over the complementary grape juice, now there's a very unbourgeois ruck breaking loose in our midst.
It's only a ten-bag for fuck's sake. Relax man. What?! That's one sadistic little prick. Ooh... you can't fake a headbutt like that. Yes! He's down! That's it, serves him right. (Don't film it on your mobile though, that's sick.) I edge sideways to get a better view.
As in all conflicts, you finds yourself in an awkward position: either too far from the action to really understand what's going on, or suddenly thrust into the thick of it, with everyone else gauging your responses. A murderer is suddenly staring you in the eyes from about 3 feet away, and everyone in the room is looking at you looking at him. You look away. How do you respond to this kind of theatre? Thanks to a driving narrative and compelling performances, we don't have much time to think about this as the action is unfurling around us. It's certainly not 'long' in any sense – the making and unravelling of a badman, packed into one explosive hour.
There are breaks from the street violence (which, for all its excitement is actually as brief and un-artful as it is, as we kn
ow it to be) – the obligatory mother's lament; the girlfriend's contempt. I'm thinking 'This is a bit Eastenders' when one of those happy conjunctions between dialogue, actress and audience occurs, and the vulnerability and helplessness emerges bleeding. It's not pity, but resignation. Dark.
There are moments that I don't want to ruin, but make sure you are in the right position to see and hear The Chorus, who wheel out the corpse, and (quite rightly) explains why we must kill. The Doubting Thomas murderer touches the wound. But what can a corpse say to the man who killed him? You can't hold grudges from beyond the grave...
Such a performance deserves to be experienced. For theatre boffins, it ticks all the Brecht boxes without being pretentious. For everyone else, it's enjoyable and educative, without being preachy. Nicholas de Jongh said (in the Evening Standard) that this play 'made theatrical history' because it is an outstanding production that is put together by people who were actually doing crime on the streets fairly recently – the male members of cast have done time in prison. I didn't mention that until now, because, for me, it is excellent, high-octane drama, and I feel the cast should be judged on their merits, not their history.
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