Even the awkward space of the Corpus Playroom isn’t quite as uncomfortable as a dingy cellar in Lebanon, but Justin Blanchard brings both spaces to life with a fantastically physical portrayal of Edward, an Irish journalist chained by his hostage takers to the wall of his prison. Blanchard’s performance rests on that brittle knife-edge seperating the likeable and the terrifying. Mocking and consoling. Constantly on the brink of madness and yet the play’s core of sanity.

Three stunning performances are reason enough to see Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. Edward is joined in his dingy Lebanese prison by an American, Adam, played by Elias Wynshaw and Englishman Michael, played by Douglas Tawn. Wynshaw’s performance is a convincing portrait of a pious do-gooder trying to make the world a better place; his doubts about his role as American crusader underpin the pain of his ordeal. Michael’s part is somewhat harder: the batty English professor who has moved to Lebanon and tried to make it just like England, obsessed with Pear flans and trying not to give in to his dark past. All three are perfect portrayals of the kind of people who find themselves attracted to life in Middle Eastern countries. All three actors fill their roles with total energy and commitment, and the moments in which the actors join together in riotous singing and rattling of chains are the most engaging of the play.

The direction of the play was generally very good: a thoughtful and detailed realisation of the script, and much of the subtlety of characterisation was down to clever direction that allowed the characters to realistically inhabit the space of the cell. The script itself is prone to create the impression of a lack of direction; Someone Who'll Watch Over Me takes futility and boredom as one of its major themes, and so it is no surprise that themes, stories, emotions never feel satisfactorily explored. But at times the accentuation of fruitlessness leads to missed opportunities. In particular, the production could have benefitted from a far more clearly defined sense of the relationship between the prisoners and their unseen guards, an infinitely interesting subject and one more strongly suggested in the dialogue than was reflected in the dramatic tempo of the production.