"This isn't theatre," snarls David Hoyle, the artist formerly known as the Divine David. "If you want theatre, Mamma Mia's in the West End." Hoyle's weekly magazine nights, produced by the sublime Duckie, are certainly not theatre in any traditional sense, but they are quite a performance: live, and fully alive in every way. It is raw, sometimes a bit frightening, but also thrilling in its look-no-hands recklessness.
Every week Hoyle creates a magazine-style show around an issue. Previous shows have covered immigration, crime and punishment, and dogging. Monday's subject was HIV and Aids. It began with a segment of pure drama: a video, shot just a couple of hours previously, of Hoyle getting the result of an HIV test, his first for 20 years despite some seriously risky behaviour. Perhaps his astonishment at being negative spurred him on in an evening of unscripted fluency and comic timing that made most stand-ups and actors look like amateurs.
Make no mistake, Hoyle takes risks in life and art, and I suspect there are nights when somebody has to be ready to catch him when he falls. At one point, he invited members of the audience on to the stage to discuss their sex lives. The crowd were reluctant to play, but when he did entice a young man up, Hoyle handled the interview with such playful intimacy that it was both revealing and touching. With a mouth like a gash and eyes like two wounds, Hoyle is a beguiling mix of savagery and vulnerability. I didn't know whether I wanted to take him home and cuddle him, or erect a barbed wire fence around him with large sign saying: "Dangerous. May bite." Still to come are the Women's Issue, Antiques Roadshow and Alcoholism. Take out a subscription.
· Until September 24. Box office: 020-7737 4043.
