Theatre

Alan and Terry have each returned to their dead mother’s tower-block flat to claim it as their own. Terry has brought the mysterious Lilly with him. Wearing hijab with niqab and speaking in a thick foreign accent, she appears to have recently escaped a horrific war in an unnamed Islamic state. She lives in a squat next door with her lover, Medic, and the couple’s baby, Bubba. Bubba is a plastic doll, which they treat as if it were real.

This isn’t the first hint that there’s something odd going on here. Philip Ridley’s script never quite decides whether it’s farce or magical realism. While the brothers seem realistic, it is hard to take them seriously. On the other hand, Medic is a cartoon of psychotic impulses and hilariously creative swearing, played with staggering intensity and charisma by John Macmillan, who appears much more threatening as a result. When Alan’s deeply disturbed son, Garth (a brilliantly wired Luke Treadaway), turns up, the balance is tipped once again and the previous constructions of reality start to unravel.

Despite being a bit of a mess structurally – as if three separate plays are fighting for attention – there is some fine writing here, combined with moments of knuckle-whitening tension. Refusing to give answers or a satisfactory resolution, the play evokes the all-too-recognisable violence and madness of modern Britain, while suggesting that imaginary friends, childhood games and telling stories can act as both coping strategies and terrifying doors to an abyss.