Don Quixote

Don Quixote' is all about scale: a small man with big dreams roams the sprawling countryside. So this modern update is pretty bold in recasting the would-be knight errant as a hermitic gamer, confining the action to a single flat and reducing the number of characters to only three. A production that so completely overhauls such legendary source material as Cervantes' novel has to be excellent, or it's not going to work. And excellent theatre this certainly is. All three actors manage charm, comedy and intensity in equal measures, manoeuvre the very small performance space with grace, and obviously take great pleasure in their craft, even the rather lo-fi musical numbers. The rain thundering on the roof, which mimics the escalating tension between the flatmates as their relationships morph and collide, creates an unexpectedly appropriate claustrophobia and is the cherry on a cake that is very tasty indeed. [Julie Balazs]