Somewhere in Europe, the rain is battering down on a speeding truck. It could be just one more HGV moving coast to coast. Inside, though, its cargo is a barely-alive quintet of would-be refugees seeking sanctuary in what they've heard is some green and pleasant land.
Cooped up like sardines and kept in the dark, the mix of Somalis, Afghanistanis, Turks and Kurds have paid good dollar to be where they are, from the middle-aged businessman to the 15-year-old girl who's already written a letter to the Queen asking for a job.
If they even get there depends on the unseen driver and his hired henchman holding them to an ever-higher ransom.
The multi-cultural mix of Clare Bayley's play would make for a volatile enough experience, even if its audience of 20 weren't witnessing the unfolding events inside a real container just off Bristo Square.
The play's set-up, of polar opposites trapped in a confined space and forced to re-evaluate their lives, is a well-worn one and staple fare of genre thrillers and disaster movies. Put in such a contemporary context made even more familiar from TV news reports, Tom Wright's production transcends novelty in an unflinching close-up of inter-personal conflicts made even more extreme by the bigger political and cultural situation.
As the five captives, performed brilliantly by a six-strong ensemble, race towards the west, full of hope in some brave new world, what's most heartbreaking of all is how much a withering indictment it is of a capitalist society that allows lives and bodies to be bought and sold in such corrupt circumstances.
Each time the container's door is opened from the outside, where the lorry's inmates will find themselves, and whether they'll even be alive at the end of it all, makes for a heart-stopping and thrilling ride.
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