The Trial, Young Vic *****

There is a feature in the Delfont Macintosh programmes at the moment that look at the great one man shows. From John Gielgud to Eilleen Atkins to Simon Callow to Kevin Spacey. The latter two I have seen perform and have seen the energy needed to engage the audience and survive on stage for 2 hours. Kevin Spacey achieved it; Simon Callow didn't. Sitting through his Charles Dickens show felt like torture. However, watching The Trial, which is essentially Rory Kinnear's one man show that happens to have other actors in it, felt like you were watching history being made. Richard Jones' production has certainly been devisive with the critics, being one of the few spectacles that has achieved a full house of scores with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 star reviews being written about it in the press, and you can see why. Gill's adaptation is radical, as is Jones' and Buether's staging and set. K's almost incomprehensible babble that is sprinkled across the 2 hour show could be seen as annoying and protentious if you can't see a justifiable reason for them. The travelator could be seen as unnecessary. And yet, to me, this is yet another top class hit from the best theatre in London. K's babble makes sense to me in showing a potentially  drunk man to show his imperfections or to isolate his inner monologue. Unlike the opera, Kinnear's K is made to be the strange man and the world to be more normal which is a fascinating interpretation of Kafka's work. Kinnear, however, still manages to make the fall of K heartbreaking and scary. He is on the stage all of the time and gives us a masterclass in acting to the extent yet doesn't detract from the chemistry of the play. The ensemble that surround him are also great, notably Kate O' Flynn, Richard Kant and Hugh Skinner. Buether's set and Mimi Jordan Smith's light create a surreal and nauseous world in which we, as the audience, are incorporated into the play as part of this society who knows everything and helps to increase K's anxiety. The travelator generates this feeling that this is a process that is unstoppable and inevitable. The whole experience is a shining example of how to produce surreal and alternative theatre.