It is almost impossible to criticise this play about the lives of Cape Town's homeless people of colour, commonly known as Bergies, without feeling completely heartless. Like a great many of the shows that have come out of South Africa over the past 25 years it is as much to do with politics, compassion and social inclusion as it is about theatre.
In the apartheid era these productions came to London and we cheered not because they were necessarily great theatre - although a few, such as Woza Albert were - but because we wanted to assent to the struggle of the South African people. That was then, but the shows keep coming, and while the issues they deal with are equally pressing, it gets harder to make excuses for them when they fail as theatre. Sitting through Suip!, the overwhelming emotion I felt was guilt - that I didn't feel moved, just slightly irritated by its raggedness.
The piece certainly provides a useful history lesson in how poor farm workers were paid part of their wages in cheap wine - turning them into alcoholics - and how when the ANC came to power its well-meaning attempt to stop this practice lead to thousands losing their jobs because the landowners didn't want to pay them more wages. Many of these ex-workers flocked to Cape Town and took up residence on the streets.
All this the play tells well, but it is less successful when it tries to personalise the history lesson through the stories of Shaun, Rose, Koffie and Sophia, who are supposedly putting on a play about their lives, watched from a distance by the slightly sinister Boy.
The actors are all terrific, but perhaps part of the problem is that they are actors. The play grew out of a student drama school project and developed through talking to real Bergies and improvising. So it falls somewhere between genuine verbatim theatre, in which actors speak only the words of those interviewed, and the kind of social theatre in which the participants are the dispossessed and speak directly of their own experience.
Without these touchstones this heartfelt, well-meaning play is in danger of becoming manipulative. It lets the audience off the hook, by making us feel better for having sympathised, without having to get off our backsides and do anything.
Until May 12. Box office: 020-7328 1000.
