Clare Bayley’s powerful play was presented in a container outside the Young Vic, and is a claustrophobic piece which is strongly reminiscent of Guy de Maupassant’s short story ‘Boule de Suif’, where a group of passengers on a stagecoach take the offer of food from one of their number and then turn from her when she sleeps with an officer to allow them all to move on.
Here we have a similar situation but in a modern setting, and a small group of people who start to fight between themselves and stand only for ‘number one’. These are illegal immigrants who hope to start new lives in England, but such aspirations come at a price.
Only 28 people could be in the audience for each performance of this play, but it is now available on the Digital Theatre platform and was transmitted on television on the ‘London Live’ channel. Tense, claustrophobic and stifling, this piece of theatre is groundbreaking in many ways, and is well worth seeking out.
Digital Theatre can be found at http://www.digitaltheatre.com/ and ‘The Container’, which runs just over an hour, can be rented from £1.99.