Why are there more young black men in mental hospitals than their white counterparts? Is it because they are usually treated by white shrinks? In Joe Penhall's play, a consultant psychiatrist, Robert, and his younger colleague, Bruce, are slugging it out over Christopher, a young black man who has been sectioned after a psychotic episode. Robert wants to release him into care in the community. Bruce passionately believes that he is a potential danger to himself, and maybe to others, and wants to keep him in hospital.
Christopher, meanwhile, believes that oranges are blue, and that he is the son of Idi Amin. According to Robert, these thoughts are culturally specific, and not signs of delusion. But Robert, who has only seen Christopher twice, is worried about the shortage of hospital beds and his own professional advancement, and he wants to write a book. Bruce, the doctor who has been treating him, argues that the man is lonely and isolated and doesn't even have a community to care for him. Release him, says Bruce, and the consequences could be dire. Neither man will back down, and the battle that ensues is ferocious. Caught in the middle of the fight is Christopher, who might just as well not exist. The needs of the patient are lost in the power play between the two doctors.
This is the most thrilling and crucial play in London, and now is the time to catch it, with a shockingly good new cast that plays the jazzy intellectual riffs of the script to perfection and brings a physicality to a piece that could easily be just a talking-heads show.
As Robert, David Threlfall is less cool and more RD Laing 1960s hangover than his predecessor. Neil Stuke has never been more effective than here, as the well-meaning liberal Bruce, who could be a control freak. And Shaun Parkes, just like the script, cleverly keeps you guessing at Christopher's real mental state.
Until January 2002. Box office: 020-7494 5075.
