Monster

If the words "one-man show" usually send shivers down your spine, then you should take a look at Da Da Kamera's Monster. Daniel MacIvor's complex and bravura performance combines with direction by Daniel Brooks, Richard Feren's score and most particularly, stunning lighting by Brooks and Andy Moro to create a performance that is certainly spine-chilling - but in the best sense of the word. MacIvor inhabits several characters and tells several tales simultaneously. There is Al and Janine who probably shouldn't get married but probably will, the recovering addict who has a great idea for a film that somebody else makes, and there is a narrator type character whose disembodied voice constantly probes and questions the audience. Like a bad sore, the action and story-telling within Monster keep returning to the story of the Boyles, the average next door neighbours that end up gruesomely in the basement. MacIvor takes us through the tale repeatedly but what is gradually uncovered under the onion-skin layers is our own voyeuristic, even prurient interest in the grim details of the dark side of society.

If Monster is not an entirely comfortable night's theatre, it is an immensely rewarding one. The piece which was devised by himself and Brooks, owes a huge amount to cinema - at curtain up we are told the movie is about to begin and from there on in, film is used as structure, reference and touchstone. However, MacIvor's physical stillness on stage and huge vocal range prove time and again that told violence is more disturbing than that which is seen.

From start to finish, Monster is a feast for both the eye and the mind. Framed by telescoping blocks of light that grow gradually fainter until all that is left is a shadowy wraith, MacIvor manipulates the audience and coerces our collusion, only to leave us high and dry with a magnificent sting in the tale's ending.

Runs until tomorrow