Monday 19 May 2008

Stockholm - TNT

Passionate and playful, tender and tormented, Frantic Assembly's two-hander strips away the almost smug perfection of an apparently ideal relationship and gets right to the core of what binds Kali and Todd so tightly together. With a potent mixture of words (Bryony Lavery's sparse script) and stylised movement (Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett's erotically charged choreography) the destructive cycle which characterises their life together gradually takes over Todd's birthday celebrations. An Ingmar Bergman film, sex on the stairs of their lovingly renovated home, a delicious meal with champagne – but there are far too many knives hanging ominously on the kitchen walls and Kali's niggling insecurities are just a missed phone call away. Taking its title both from the country the protagonists are planning to visit and the psychological syndrome (in which victims become emotionally attached to their tormentors) this is a compelling and visually imaginative work in which the controlled fluidity of Samuel James and Georgina Lamb's performances powerfully accentuate the violence underpinning the surface harmony of their perfect partnership.
Hampstead Eton Avenue, NW3. (020-7722 9301). Until May 24. £23-£14 (£11 for under 26s)

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