BWW Reviews: RETZ'S THE TRIAL, Shoreditch Town Hall and Rose Lipman Community Centre, April 3 2013

PG Wodehouse's bon mot about the fascination of shooting as a sport being dependent on the end of the gun at which one finds oneself applies equally to 21st century state security. There's a certain reassurance in reading of terrorist plots foiled, in the little padlock icon that shows that one's banking is safe online, in the blocking technology that screens internet content for kids - but what goes on behind the scenes to make all that happen? And what's it like to be on the other end of the Security System? Retz, taking their cue from Kafka, but also from Philip K Dick and even Lewis Carroll, put you, yes you, on the receiving end in an extraordinary evening of disorientation, intimidation and fascination.

Arriving at Shoreditch Town Hall, you check in and notice the logo of the Department for Digital Privacy, a state agency which appears to be running things through its efficient staff. It's all for the greater good, of course, protecting Britain from threats both international and local. However, things soon start to go awry and, like Josef K. in Kafka's novel, you stand accused without ever knowing the charge. From that moment hence, your will is no longer your own.

With alternative realities, the convincers are all in the details and it is in such details as much as the performances that Retz creates its nightmare. And, without giving any of the experience away, these details make for a nightmare that convinces and convinces and convinces. Fortunately, as with those unwelcome dreams, you do come out alive and in one piece - if a little shaken. But when I got home, I checked, and I still had the Department's information leaflets, so it did actually happen. Believe me - it does this to you.

With humour of the darkest hue, a bang up-to-date take on a classic story that spawned its own adjective and with sets constructed in the real buildings and the real streets of a London at once familiar and unfamiliar, this is immersive theatre at its most potent. Take a deep breath and plunge in - and just hope you hold on to your mind long enough to survive!

Retz's The Trial is at venues in Hoxton until 27 April. You have been warned...

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