It’s 20 years from now and the world is divided into the member states of the Global Economic Alliance and the dismissively termed Others. Such is the tension between these factions that hundreds of camps have been built for the internment of suspected terrorists, not only on the ground but also in aircraft, perpetually in flight, and in ships. It is to one such facility, Camp Zero, located in a desert, that Alex, a translator, and Tom, a naive army recruit, are dispatched. Alex is pragmatic, his intention simply to do his part in the unpleasant but necessary business of protecting the alliance; Tom, ten times bereaved by the terrorist attacks, is fuelled by boyish excitement and the promise of vengeance. Neither is prepared for the savagery that awaits.

Chris O’Connell’s new play, presented by his Theatre Absolute company, is noisy, chaotic and as subtle as a jackboot to the crotch. But it has urgency and intelligence, and Matt Aston’s sweaty, hard-edged production grips. In this dystopian near-future, the wellspring of hatred is the wealth gap. O’Connell avoids dwelling on the historical and religious causes of conflict, and so oversimplifies. Instead, he depicts a world polluted by brutality, its inhabitants dehumanised by rampant capitalism; and air, sea and land all contaminated by the camps that symbolise hatred and division.

He also raises the issue of censorship: horrified by the torture he not only witnesses but in which he is forced to participate, Alex plans to tell all in a book and, with Tom, flees the camp. But will anyone want to listen? The evocation of control by propaganda and fear is almost Orwellian.

An opposing view is offered by the ruthless realpolitik of the camp’s general and a pregnant female interrogator, whose willing espousal of techniques designed to terrify, agonise and humiliate is motivated by her determination to make the world safe for her unborn child, her natural maternal instinct corrupted by unnatural economic and political systems.

The argument is less rigorous than it could be, because those characters are underwritten – as is the suspect with whom Alex unsuccessfully attempts to make a connection. Still, Aston’s staging, with its oppressive sound and lighting and its stylised violence, delivers the play’s punch despite its dialectical drawbacks. There are strong performances from Stephen Hudson as Alex, driven from complacency to action and the edge of madness, and from Daniel Hoffmann-Gill as greenhorn Tom.

Box office: 020-7240 6283, to Sat Nov 29, 2008

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