Bacon, Nightingale Theatre, Brighton, May 23

3:57pm Friday 25th May 2007

There's a crucial few minutes shortly after entering a theatre when the artifice of what you're witnessing is apparent. If this lasts too long, then often the play fails; if it fades away unknowingly, then often it succeeds.

If, however, the piece can somehow balance the two things together harmoniously, then you might get to enjoy something truly great. Bacon got as close to this as anything I've seen for a long time.

It would be an understatement to say Pip Utton inhabited the character - for a while he became him entirely, seamlessly managing the erratic moods of the irascible, irreverent artist.

The monologue he delivered, which encapsulated a potted biography alluding to parental abuse, numerous sexual encounters and the vagaries of the art world, was captivating, thoughtful and funny.

Better still was the thematic content, which like Bacon's paintings touched upon death, loss and the viscera of human physicality. It's this reality which was at stake in the piece - the artifice here became a living metaphor for the artifice of all art.

In this way the play took great risks: it questioned our need to enquire into Bacon's life like this, it broached the nihilism of his work and the horror of our response to it. Ultimately, it put the audience and not the performer at its centre and asked us to confront the pleasures, terrors and contingencies of our own brief lives.

Editor's Choice