The Interview

In Michael Franco's taut drama, it is not so much The Prisoner who is under interrogation as the practice of interrogation itself.

There are two interrogators: one "old school", who gets a kick out of devising fast-acting torture techniques that leave no external scar; the other, a less enthusiastic inquisitor, wishes to follow protocol. Repeated phone calls from an unnamed Secretary of State urge the pair to get results, and fast. As the pressure builds, interrogation methods change from violent to obscene. "My department is very results-orientated," explains the reluctant interrogator to The Prisoner, apologetically.

Results. Performance targets. Efficiency. These are the idols which make humans monsters. You spend your life searching for monsters, says the reluctant interrogator in a devastating moment of enlightenment, and then "you look in the mirror and you realise it's you, you're the monster." His character is by far the most compelling in the play, interrogating himself more deeply than the bound man in front of him. None of the others show similar development.

The drama is more visceral than intellectual, it makes its anti-torture argument with blows not words. The impact of this is lessened for the audience, however, by the incongruously farcical use of Fringe Programmes as instruments of torture. Is this meant to be a clever allusion to the play's ultimate message: it could be you? Or did someone forget to bring a prop? Whichever, it looks crass and renders the abominable absurd.

A powerful play at its best, but with the occasional false note.