Revolution is in the air in Richmond. The Orange Tree was packed to the rafters with young people (there are £10 tickets for the under 30s at every performance). The play itself, by the 27-year-old Alistair McDowall, was an unnerving mix of urban nightmare and sci-fi thriller that, while not my particular cup of tea, undoubtedly possessed a dark, compelling power.
The play’s title refers to a mythic concrete island in the heart of Manchester and the action starts with a young girl, Ollie, in pursuit of her missing twin sister.
I was briefly reminded of the early work of Stephen Poliakoff, with its suggestion of secret worlds existing inside modern cities. But McDowall’s idea of a contemporary urban hell folds into a role-playing game explicitly based on the horror stories of the American writer, HP Lovecraft. As in Lovecraft, we are asked to believe in the existence of a sinister cult seeking to usher in a new reign of chaos. In the course of the play’s uninterrupted 115 minutes, Ollie’s private quest merges into a variation on a Dungeons and Dragons fantasy.
I confess that McDowall’s world vision is not one I readily share. He posits a society where goodness is a precarious survivor and where our solitary lives continue in a meaningless loop founded in pain and suffering.
But, however alien I find McDowall’s bleakly pessimistic ideas, he pursues them with expressive vigour and structural cunning. He is especially good at one-on-one encounters: one scene, in which an abused sex-worker confronts a self-hating client seeking to curb his violent tendencies, is peculiarly touching. Even the notion that our existence is based on a pointless circularity is neatly captured by framing the play with a journey round Manchester’s M60 ring road.
McDowall is well served by Ned Bennett’s brilliant production, which lends the play’s imaginative wildness a surface plausibility. The hectic action takes place in and around a sunken pit, designed by Georgia Lowe, that serves as seething city centre, bizarre bordello, subterranean hospital and dice-filled game board. In a uniformly impressive cast, Nadia Clifford as the twin sisters, Sam Swann as a nervous security guard, Sean Rigby as his troubled accomplice and Sarah Middleton as an equivocal figure in octopus-like head-mask stand out. The horror-story format is not ideal as a vehicle for serious ideas, but the play is undeniably gripping and was rapturously received by its young audience.
• Until 13 December. Box Office: 020-8940 3633. Venue: Orange Tree, Richmond.
