Hot Mess

Ella Hickson, however, has arrived at the Hawk and Hunter – itself the scene of many a failed seduction – with "a dark, lyrical tale about friendship, sex and solitude.

"I have been fascinated over recent years to watch how much more connected people are but how this in no way appeases loneliness," Ella says. "There seems to be a disjunction between contact and content, the more we connect the less each connection means. I've noted this particularly in sexual relations, there is a vacuousness to them that I think is particularly acute at the moment."

This sense of social isolation, and the desperate attempt to escape it through unfulfilling erotic trysts, is becoming a persistent theme within contemporary performance. The rise of intimate theatre – one-to-one performances, small audiences in tight venues – echoes an artistic attempt to bridge the gap between Facebook Friendship and the numbing alliances that pass as modern community.

Ella admits: "It worries me – I guess that's what makes the play dark, that it's something that may not be damaging in itself, at the moment, but I think if it continues, at its extreme, it will threaten the very essence of humanity and human relations."

Rather than merely rhapsode on her own erotic successes and failures (compare Sex Idiot or Lady in Bed), Hot Mess has a more symbolic and abstract approach. "I wanted to challenge naturalism a little," she affirms. "Britain holds it as its central tenant, but in other parts of Europe are inclined toward a more poetic style."

Hot Mess' story of sex, love and alienation was led by the discovery of Hawk and Hunter: "We started with the venue," Ella elaborates. "As a company we had made the broad conceptual link between the topic of hyper-sexuality and the nightclub. We found the venue first and then the play was written for the space. Hawke and Hunter have been behind us all the way, open to ideas and options, and have become integral to the show."

Despite the fashionable "site-responsive" setting, Hickson is, in many ways, a theatrical traditionalist. While acknowledging that this is a personal opinion, she remains enthusiastic about the importance of the script as a foundation for a performance. "I have sometimes seen devised work that has great moments but lacks the coherence and arc of a scripted piece," and that, "Good theatre for me, which is not to say that it is the right way, but only my opinion, needs to come from a combination of writerly craft and inspiration."

Certainly, a subject as challenging as emotional isolation needs a strong anchor, especially when cast adrift into a nightclub theatre. At the heart of the play are twins, who seem to have shared out their emotions at birth. Polo cannot love, Twitch does nothing but. From this conceit, comes a reunion, a hectic night isolated on an island. The twins are adults, the tiding is rising and the past is making itself felt. Yet the apparently personal narrative has, according to Hickson, an intensely political resonance.

"The way people love and fuck has always been a key marker of how they live. I think sex is a deeply political issue and, in fact, it says a lot about our national identity.  To separate sex from politics is, I think, to ignore the most interesting part of it, it is a negotiation between two,often wildly different, parties, can't get much more political than that."