Lorca is Dead

It is, for the most part, enormously engaging - a witty script isn't quite as clever as it thinks it is, but there are plenty of laughs, tempered by flashes of genuine emotion. The show is not for the shy - the performers intermingle with the audience to an almost alarming degree, so you're as likely to end up on stage or with an actor on your lap as you are to emerge unscathed, but this makes it an immediate and affecting experience. And for all its humour, there is a solid emotional core at the heart of the play. 'Lorca' himself is signified by the deceptively simple device of passing a red scarf around, moving from performer to audience (so we are all Lorca, Lorca is us), intensifying our connection with this valiant but ultimately doomed figure.

A working knowledge of the Surrealist movement helps, (there are strong performances by director and writer Dominic J Allen as Paul Eluad and Patrick Fysh as Aragon, while Lucy Farrett slinks around as duplicitous wife Gala, but with little-to-no back-story it's hard to know who they actually are).

Even the less informed, however, will recognise figures such as the film-maker Bunuel (Joe Hufton) and the painter Matisse (here played by an effective Serena Manteghi as a frequently misunderstood comedy Belgian). Then, of course, there is James Wilkes' charismatic Dali, who grandstands his way through the show, dominating the performance as he dominated the movement he sprang from, leaving the lesser known figures floundering in his wake. Marcus Emerton's Andre Breton - although occasionally oddly reminiscent of Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off - is particularly affecting as a figure who is struggling to maintain control of the movement he helped found, even as Dali is subverting it into the cult of individualism that continues to define us now.

The evocative set - a stage pretending to be a lounge pretending to be a stage pretending to be a lounge (etc) - is fantastic, echoing the disjointed intimacy of the play. The show doesn't always work; at times it loses direction and seems a muddled bag of sexual and political ideals that haven't been properly thought through, and the arch posturing can make you feel like you're trapped at a party full of cooler-than-thou Hoxtonites who are much less amusing than they think they are. But ultimately it is redeemed by the commitment of the performers and a brave and effective ending that sends you reeling into the streets. Lorca may be dead, but this is a fitting send off.

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