SINNER, Purcell Room, London

With the current politcal climate as it is, I think it is brave as well as important for people like Rob Tannion and Liam Steel to cast a maverick 'terrorist' bomber (which I assume is David Copeland, the infamous nail-bomber who went on a lone mission of mass destruction in 1999 against virtually any minority within his sights) as central to this plot. It almost seems a thing of the past to tackle such issues in dance, as if what people long for now is introspection and escapism, perhaps to take their minds away from the daily news of the war in Iraq, terror threats, etc., etc.

So in this piece of dance theatre, where the central character is a racist, psychotic, nail-bombing homophobe, you could almost be forgiven for thinking that tonight is not exactly going to be a barrel of laughs. However, like life, paradoxically SINNER (unlike the sad and twisted bigotry of someone like Copeland) is just not that black and white.

Copeland is a metaphor of what can happen when one looks at everything in such stark black and white/good and evil terms. We are all hypocrites and full of contradictions and a world of individual[s] that puts itself above such human fallibilities is more than likely to end in some sort of 'Copelandesque' disaster.

Two guys meet in a gay bar, one macho (Tannion), the other a nervous, paranoid loner (Steel). They take us through a journey, delving into the confused mind of Steel's character, struggling with his repressed homosexuality, looking in on a world competely alien to him, feeling a mixture of inadequacy and disgust, yet at the same time seeing a mirror image of himself. SINNER utlilises to great effect movement and text (which can so often end up looking laughable and ridiculous), as well as humour, to convey a very serious and disturbing story.

SINNER has all the classic ingredients to fall flat on its face or become exasperatingly worthy; however, it does none of these things and what unfolds is an intoxicating, thought provoking drama, full of power and urgency, exploiting the theatre space to its absolute full effect. Everyone should see this!