PORNOGRAPHY

13/8/09, Tricycle

1hr 30'. A powerful rumination on the 7 July bombings, in which the most sympathetic character was the bomber. The rest were various dysfunctional, sad, alienated.

There was the schoolboy racist and motormouth; the elderly widow living alone and apparently addicted to interne tporn; the neurotic secretary and mother; the ageing lecturer and the former student he disastrously makes a pass at; the brother and sister embarking on an incestuous relationship.

A said it left a bad taste in her mouth. I found it gripping, though it didn't make it easy, proceeding as a succession of intercut monologues and dialogues in the run up to and immediate aftermath of 7/7, but each character (or pair of characters) seemed to be operating on a different timescale, so that one would be talking about the queues on the 7th as the tubes stopped working while another was still talking about winning the Olympics.

If you were in London on 7 July it brought it all back. The chaos. The fear. The euphoria at London's selection for the Olympics.

Simply staged, with lights hanging from cables above the stage which occasionally flashed bright white lights at moments of shock or tension.

The old lady the star: very funny, and very affecting. The writing powerful and direct.

The bomber was the only one who had standards. He kisses his family goodbye; he deplores the bad behaviour rampant in society; he thanks bus drivers (they don't respond); he smiles at ticket collectors (they ignore him).

Was the point one about alienation in modern society? Our addiction to forbidden things (violence, hatred, pornography, siblings, young students)? It made us all seem such a nasty, inadequate lot.