BANG was quite simply the most ambitious straight theatre piece I’ve seen in years. It’s reminiscent of the evocative and accumulative chain-of-coincidences approach of Robert Lepage, but whereas the technical whizz-bangery of Lipsynch (far from his best work in my view) was nullified but a meandering and largely quite dull and predictable series of narratives that begged for a sharpened red pencil, in BANG the writing is just delicious. It moves effortlessly from the domestic to the geo-political, and is populated by a vast array of complex and believable characters. It’s themes are monumental, but its commitment to the specificity of the ordinary people caught up in this inexorable turn of history’s wheel makes it seem relentlessly real, despite the transparent artifice of its structure (and design). My one small reservation, shared by Jason Blake in his review, was in the motivation of our home-grown bomber, whose family life and subsequent romance felt real, but whose radicalisation seemed to be a contrivance to enable the second half. A necessary one to provoke the heart-breaking last confrontation perhaps, but nonetheless this is an element that I expect future productions of this play will work on further. Because don’t be mistaken – there will be future productions of this play. And they will be big. And we will be able to say that we were there in the beginning.