Michael Hunt / Reviews

Imaginatively transplanted into a dystopian South Africa of unspecified date, the Paris-based original fares remarkably well, generating both mirth and pathos. For instance, instead of the romance-promoting powercut of Act One being due to an empty meter, there is the all-too-familiar announcement, “Eskom regrets that…”The downside is impaired credibility when at Christmas (in South Affica???) there are references to freezing cold, with lightly-clad vendors at the outdoor night market cheek by jowl with shivering, heavily muffled-up patrons.Particularly successful are the comic interludes of Acts One and Four in which poverty-stricken men resort to puerile antics to allay their intense hunger and dire living conditions