Through the Arch off Cope Street *****

THEATRE DEMANDS our empathy, yet rarely wins it. Even those with a sincere, traumatic story to tell – perhaps especially those – can be resisted: suddenly we don’t want to get close. So, with the story of her life-long recovery from rape and sexual paralysis, delivered – of all places – from a bed in a musty shed down a dark alley, what makes Veronica Dyas so special?

First, it’s her extraordinary, fluid detail as a storyteller: the rubbish chute of her family home (the first of many); the Elizabeth Taylor fascinations of her grandmother, her confidant; the awed moment she realised her sexuality; the armour she built up following her attack. Then there is Dyas, whose tough exterior and short, nervous laugh contain the generous soul of a poet. Then there’s us, gently involved in her cathartic narrative, affected in utterly unexpected ways.

If this is therapy, it’s not for her, but for a society, for history, for you. At the end of a spellbinding, devastating hour, she even asks if we’re okay.

We will be.

Runs until Sunday