By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN? Friday 24 July, opens 29 July and runs through 29 August 2026 RUNTIME: 100 minutes (no interval)

Our performance is stopped almost midway through for what was described as ‘a front of house emergency’ and we imagine it was in response to the spurting blood as a character’s tongue is cut off.

• Read on for reasons including how this is exactly the sort of play that can remind about the power of theatre to change its audience

Sarah Kane’s (Crave) Cleansed is not for the fainthearted and audience members are asked to cover their phones with a sticker before venturing into the auditorium for a show which includes nudity by both sexes, sodomy by pole and the loss of both hands and feet through torture.

Jack Riddiford’s (Stereophonic, Duke Of York’s Theatre) Graham asks Leo Bill’s (The Duchess of Malfi, Almeida) Tinker for a fix, dies and we assume Cleansed is actually his fever dream as he passes through drug overdose although the late author’s notes describe its setting as a university operating as ‘an institution designed to rid society of its undesirables’ where ‘a group of inmates try to save themselves through love’.

Director Rebecca Frecknall (A Moon For The Misbegotten, Almeida) leaves her role at this venue for the Old Vic soon and is probably best known for her multiple Olivier Award-winning Cabaret, still running at The Kit Kat Klub which couldn’t be further from Cleansed.

Riddiford appears later as another character and Cleansed places a young woman and her brother, a disturbed boy, a gay couple and a peepshow dancer within its world of extreme cruelty in which declarations of love are viciously tested.

There is a beautiful use of daffodils to signify spring hope but the mood is almost as unremittingly bleak as you might expect from an author who took her own life aged just 28 in 1999.

Kane has written just 5 plays and we’ve reviewed just 1 other – Crave – and it really is quite rare for her work to be staged with the last revival of this 10 years ago at the National’s Dorfman Theatre.

There’s a hugely talented ensemble here to bring this challenging work to life including the always fascinating Pearl Chanda (Broken Glass, Young Vic) and hugely talented Stuart Thompson (Radiant Boy: A Haunting, Southwark Playhouse).

Can love and hope beat brutality?

We did wonder whether we should leave when the ‘front of house emergency’ struck because this is a tough watch.

But Cleansed is exactly the sort of play that can remind about the power of theatre to change its audience even though it might not be a show people will be clamouring to return to.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Almeida Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen a Sarah Kane show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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